Second Chance
by Iellix
Summary: “I love you, Will Scarlett,” she said. “We are very lucky to have this second chance together. I would be very disappointed if something happens and I die knowing that I did not take advantage of it.” Pre-finale Will/Djaq lemon with a fringe of plot.
1. One

I started writing this story alongside "Home Fires" as a side-project. I'd just intended for it to be a bit of shameless, pointless Will/Djaq smuff, but it got out of control length-wise (if this surprises you, please stand on your head), and then it developed this really awful fatal flaw: A PLOT! So, instead of making a gratuitously fluffy and pointless smutty one-shot, I'm splitting the whole thing into sections and posting it as a proper chaptered story. I hope you enjoy it!

Warning: Yes, this is an "M"-rated story. This chapter by itself is very tame, but later it _will_ get progressively filthier. So please be warned—the "BACK" button is right over there on your browser if this bothers you.

Thanks to the lovely MissWed for helping me (read: forcing me) to write this story and acting as a semi-beta when I was unsure of some things.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Robin Hood characters and don't profit from their use. Darn.

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o…o

The boat rocked and creaked slowly as she leaned against the rail looking down the side into the dark water below, watching it slosh up the barnacle-covered belly of the ship. The smells of old wood, of ropes, salt, and brine were intense and stung her nose as she breathed. Her sea-legs had come in just a few days, but it was taking more time than that to grow used to that overpowering smell.

The sky above her was moonless and eerily dark. Only the stars lit the ship's deck around her, casting the tiniest little splash of pale blue light amid the darkness.

Djaq shivered, the night air chilling her even more now that they were out on the open water. She thought it was cold on land, but the wind and even the air itself out here were all so much colder, and it chilled her right down to the bone. Her flimsy coat wasn't enough to keep her warm as she tugged it closer around herself in a futile effort to ward off the cold.

She was startled by footfalls behind her, heavy and long; she turned quickly to see who was coming. Being off-guard here was something she couldn't quite afford—some of the sailors and crew gave her leering, greasy looks that frightened her. She knew that none of her friends, and _especially_ not Will, would let anything happen to her, but that was no substitute for being alert.

"I didn't mean to scare you," came Will's soft apology. He stood a few feet away from her, keeping still, lest he frighten her again.

"I thought you might have been one of _them,"_ she whispered.

He nodded. "I don't like how they look at you," he admitted shyly, looking down nervously and biting his lower lip.

"Feeling protective?" She asked teasingly, not expecting an answer.

"Yes. Very. I don't… I don't like the thought of anything happening to you. I almost lost you once—I won't let it happen again."

She leaned back against the rail, tightening her grip on the edge until her hands hurt. There had been a certain degree of awkwardness between them over the last days; during the mad dash to Portsmouth, they had all been in such a frenzied hurry to get to the port city and find the first ship leaving for Acre that she and Will hadn't had the chance to talk to one another in private about what had happened. The first chance they'd had was on the ship—there were a few quiet little nooks where they could hide and be at peace from everybody else, but they hadn't. It had been several days and it was almost like they were avoiding each other.

But of course they were.

How were they supposed to start a conversation? How could they pick up their friendship after their world was thrown completely off-kilter by the weight of those words, "I love you"? It was impossible to think that things could return to the way they had always been—the purpose of _Kalilah and Dimna_ was to clear their hearts and their conscious of their worries and questions before they were to die. She hadn't expected that they were going to survive past morning, hadn't given any thought to what this abrupt and weighty confession would do to them.

Now she wasn't sure what to _do._

Djaq didn't have a great deal of experience with affairs of the heart and she had no doubt that shy Will Scarlett had even less. What was that expression the English used? "The blind leading the blind"?

"You shouldn't stay up here too long," he told her. "Aren't you cold?"

Nod. "I did not realize it would be so cold out on the open water. Though it is not as if I could have taken any precautions—we never planned to do this." She rubbed her arms vigorously, trying to warm herself.

There was a moment of hesitation; she saw his hands knot behind the fabric of his cloak. Then he lifted one arm, taking the side of the garment with him and inviting her to come under the cloak with him where it was warmer. She saw the nervousness in his face as he waited for her to move next.

She inched slowly forward, prying her hands from the rail behind her to come close to him and tuck herself under his arm, pulling the heavy folds of his cloak around herself. Even as she stood against him, she felt every muscle in his body tense at the contact, as if he was fighting some instinctive response to flee from her. Whether it was nervousness or something else, she had no idea.

"Maybe we should get below," he suggested. "It's a bit warmer down there."

This was probably a good idea. He walked her down towards the hatch, still snuggled beneath the arm around her shoulders and the cloak she kept close around herself.

After parting in order to descend the little wooden ladder into the hold where the crew and the passengers, including the gang, were all sleeping, they stood together at the bottom of the ladder.

Another hesitation. He looked down at her with a contemplative expression before he nudged her in front of him, wrapping his arms and his cloak around her and drawing her close back against his chest. He was incredibly tense with nerves as he held her, but he fought it again as he lowered his head to nuzzle her cheek.

She could feel his breath come shakily against her and Djaq sighed quietly, leaning into him—this was the most intimate contact she'd had with him since their kiss in the barn and she revelled in it. She brought her hands up and hooked them around his arms, still tight around her shoulders.

The young carpenter was _painfully _shy, this she knew; he would hardly even touch her unless she told him it was all right. Even then, he kept the contact between them as brief and chaste as possible. Part of it was due, no doubt, to the fact that he was, really, little more than a boy—maybe only twenty years old, several years younger than she was. He was also simply too frightened, too unsure of himself and of what might or might not happen between them to do anything more daring. It was absolutely _frustrating._

He hugged her even tighter to him, clutching her so close to his chest, as if he was trying to absorb her into his skin. Even though she hated restraints of any kind, she felt comfortable standing here, being gently crushed in Will's embrace and the warmth of his wool cloak. She tilted her head back and to the side so her nose touched his neck; instead of shying away from that little touch like she thought he might, he rubbed his cheek against her hair affectionately.

For what seemed like ages, she didn't _dare_ move. She was both happy that he was touching her, and worried that he might shy away again.

He brushed his lips over her temple. It wasn't a kiss, but it was close.

She slowly released the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. The tiniest noise escaped her as she sighed against his neck, and it startled him. It made him seize up again, like he feared he'd just done something wrong; he drew back sharply, but kept her wrapped up in his cloak.

"I—I'm sorry," he stuttered quickly.

"No," she whispered. "Don't do that. It is all right…" She hoped that this would encourage him, but she wasn't optimistic.

He drew back from her and turned her around so she faced him, and her heart leapt into her neck. He was visibly nervous, but he looked determined.

Slowly, haltingly, he came forward. Then he quickly dipped his head and pecked her ever so gently on the cheek. It was enough to make Djaq's stomach turn flips.

"Will…"

He did it again, but this time the smallest of kisses was planted on her lips. Even in the dim light, she could see the intensely red blush in his cheeks. He looked like he'd just committed a crime.

Silence.

"Good night, Djaq," he said quickly, releasing her and disappearing deeper into the belly of the ship.

He was gone before she had the chance to respond.

She gently pressed her fingers to her lips and smiled. That was absolutely the most brazen and impulsive thing he'd ever done—possibly in his entire life.

Then her smile faltered. If a tiny, shy, hesitant little kiss was as "brazen" as he would ever be, she would probably go quite mad.

The most infuriating thing about this whole situation was that this was the second chance they both longed for. Somehow—through the grace of Allah or fate or just flat out _luck_—they made it out of the barn and away from the mercenaries that morning _alive._

She remembered staring at him as they stood at either side of the barn doors, preparing to go out and meet their doom. To know that Will returned her feelings, the love for him that she'd been hiding for such a long time, should have been a happy discovery. After all, she hadn't thought he _could_ feel anything but friendship for her—she was just "one of the lads" wasn't she? But he _did_ love her. It should have been such a wonderful thing to hear. And yet it hadn't been. Looking into those sad, beautiful green eyes, all she had felt was pain and desperation, a tight constricting feeling in her chest and her stomach.

Then she'd kissed him, knowing that their first kiss would be their last and wishing, bitterly, that they had more time together, even if it was just a few minutes.

And now, through some kind of miracle, they _had_ more time. She had no way of knowing _how much_ time—anything could happen in Acre, and even on their journey something terrible could occur. But it was all the more reason to take advantage of whatever time they had left, while they still had it.

Djaq knew that he wanted her just as much as _she_ wanted _him—_she could see it in his eyes whenever he looked at her, those long smouldering looks that never made any sense before but the meaning of which became clear now. But in the end, the trouble all just came back to him being too shy to act on his feelings. She knew better, though; it was all just a matter of finding the one little chink in his armour of self-control.

She grinned wickedly to herself. She was determined to take advantage of this second chance they'd been given. She would enjoy Will Scarlett—all of him—while she still could.

o…o

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A bit of a cliff-hanger here for you. This is more a prologue than a first chapter, hence why I'm posting it mid-week, but I hope it doesn't disappoint. No lemon yet, I'm afraid, but it _is_ coming.

Reviews and feedback of any kind are always appreciated, but I don't demand them. Updates will come once a week on Fridays, whether or not I get them. (Those of you who read HF will remember this drill.)


	2. Two

Here's chapter two! Thanks to everybody who read and reviewed—I'm sorry I haven't produced any lemony goodness yet, but I promise that it _is_ coming. Eventually. I just wanted to get an appropriate amount of tension mounted before I let the poor dears _snap._

Disclaimer: Hmm, nope! Still don't own Robin Hood!

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o…o

Five days. Five long, long days, and he still hadn't cracked. She had no idea how—she was fairly on edge herself, so she couldn't imagine how Will was keeping a rein on his self-control. Not with everything she'd been doing to him of late.

Having decided that she was going to go ahead and try to enjoy as much of Will Scarlett as she could while there was still time, she'd set about the task of actually seducing the young man. This was much easier in theory than it was in practice. To begin with, she didn't need the rest of the gang, _and_ the handful of other passengers, _and_ the ship's crew to know what she was doing, so she had had to go about it very carefully so nobody could see what she was doing. This meant discreet touches, whispered words, and stolen kisses in dark corners.

At the start, he seemed almost pleased that she was being so forward. It probably came as a relief to him, because he was too nervous to start anything himself. Though shy in the beginning, he was soon responding to those little touches with his own, and later catching her in private for a kiss every so often. Djaq began to think that maybe this whole thing wouldn't be as difficult as she thought it would be.

And then one night, when he followed her up on deck where they knew they could be reasonably alone, things had changed. For a while they stood together by the rail, wrapped close in the warm folds of his old cloak and enjoying what passed for 'solitude' on the crowded little ship. She had snuggled back against his chest, shielding herself from the cold night air and cocooning herself almost completely in cloak and tunic and Will. He smelled familiarly of well-worn clothes, the tang of metal from the weapons he carried, of timber, and the faint smell of the forest they all left behind.

Then he'd made the first move, which was strange for him—before that he always let her be the one to decide to go first. It wasn't a blatant show of affection, but with them the actions never needed to be for the meaning to come across; he brought his hands up her arms, scraping ever so lightly with his fingernails through the thin materials of her coat and her shirt, raising delicious waves of goosebumps all over her wherever his hands went. He lipped her neck, her cheek, her ear, sometimes kissing and sometimes just ghosting his lips over her skin. It was enough to make her melt, though there wasn't a great deal that Will could do that _didn't_ make her absolutely giddy.

She'd turned in his arms, pausing just long enough to look at him in the insufficient light cast by the tiniest little sliver of new moon above them—how there be _so much_ beautiful in just one man?—and smiled before kissing him soundly. That time, there hadn't been any surprise at her action, and he responded quickly, arduously, devouring her kisses as if he had been starved for them. He wrapped his arms tight around her back and held her flush against him, determined to get rid of any of that pesky, unnecessary space in between them.

Oh, it was wonderful. She mouthed all the way down his neck and his collarbone—the most skin she could reach with his tunic blocking her way any further—and he placed ticklish little feather-light kisses on as much of her as he could get to without divesting her of her clothing. When she gently bit down on his neck, a little groan escaped him as he exhaled, and Djaq nearly felt her heart stop beating.

From there, things escalated. Hands turned curious, leaving the relative safety of arms and shoulders to roam other places—up and down stomachs and backs, resting on one another's hips and backsides and scraping at the loose edges of clothing.

Her hands reached below the neckline of his tunic, exploring his back and broad shoulders. She felt his muscles tense briefly at her touch, then relax again as he sighed quietly. She voiced breathy whispers of permission between kisses, and slowly he began to slide his hands under the hem of her shirt, just gently hovering over her waist, tentatively brushing bare skin with trembling fingers and driving her absolutely crazy.

She tightened her arms around his neck and kissed him again; his arms wound around her beneath her shirt, pulling the garment up and exposing her bare back and stomach to the coarse material of his clothing and cloak. Whimpering, she tried to get even closer to him, only to discover that there was no more space between them to do away with.

He withdrew his hands from her bare skin; Djaq whined low in her throat in protest, wriggling against him and trying to get him to bring them back. Then he clawed wantonly at her leather bodice, pulling the straps down her arms. She didn't give it a second thought—she shrugged out of the garment, using one hand to pull it down her torso, over her hips and thighs, and hastily stepped out of it, kicking it to the side, all without taking her mouth away from his.

With the thick leather covering gone, she could better feel his chest against hers. It sent white-hot sparks through her whole body, a warm feeling pooling between her thighs. Instinctively, she brought one leg up and hooked it over his hip. That contact had nearly made her fall right off of him onto the floor.

Will gasped, tensed up, and drew back sharply. She'd nearly screamed. What was he doing? She remembered looking at his face and seeing an odd expression, as if he was considering something he hadn't thought of before.

"What?" She'd asked pleadingly. "Will, what is it?"

"I—I'm sorry. I… can't. I can't…" he was turning bright red, backing further and further away from her. "We can't do this."

He was going to make her absolutely crazy this way. "Why not?"

"Because. We just… can't. I'm sorry."

And with that he'd left.

Djaq loosed a frustrated sigh. What had happened then? She still didn't know, and it was two days ago. He'd been avoiding her since then.

_And_ she never found her bodice. She didn't know where she'd flung it after she took it off and when she came back the next morning to look for it, it was nowhere to be found.

How irritating.

She hugged her legs tightly up to her chest and sighed into her knees. She'd been sitting here in this little space in the hold, between two crates, for some time now absorbed in thought. It occurred to her that Will might have been unsure of the idea of, well, sex. They weren't married and both of them had been taught their whole lives that those… relations were taboo outside of married couples. That didn't mean that nobody did them—far from it—but it _did_ mean that such things weren't spoken about in polite company in either of their cultures. But unlike Will, she had been forced to confront the veracity of the ideals of the tenants of faith over the years, and decided that those who represented Allah in this world couldn't always be trusted to know what was best for everybody at all times; she knew enough that she could question or even throw away some of the things she had been taught over the years.

She was a firm believer in the idea that Allah helped those who helped themselves. She had been given this second chance with the man she loved, and she had no idea if they would have enough time to do all of the proper things, to marry him and to save herself for their wedding night; what would it say about her resolve if she wasted this chance?

But young Will Scarlett might not have confronted these things the way she had, whether through ignorance or simply never giving any merit to second-guessing the Christian priests. The more she thought on it, the more it began to make sense. He was trying his best, keeping his passion in check and avoiding her, maintaining the belief that this was the only way to do right by her—when all she wanted was _him._

She only wished she could make him see that, but it was so hard to get hold of him these days. Although even if she _did_ manage to catch him, she wasn't sure _how_ to make him see it—part of her hoped that just explaining it to him would do the trick, but another part of her worried that nothing short of stripping naked and _pleading_ would work.

And, knowing him, it would probably frighten him. She recalled with an internal giggle the day she came into the gang, when an _extremely_ surprised Will accidentally walked up on her bathing. At the time she had been angry and embarrassed that the _Englishman_ had snuck up on her and surprised her, seen her bathing, _seen her breasts—_so angry that she accused him, erroneously, of spying on her and then stormed off, smacking him in the face with a tree branch as she walked away, covering her chest with her towel and trying to maintain her dignity as best as she could. But as she looked back on the event in her mind—something she did far more often than she would have admitted to anybody—she knew how utterly _shocked_ he'd been. His mouth dropped open and his eyes nearly came right out of his head. It was probably the first time he'd _ever_ seen a woman naked, or even partially naked.

The poor boy was so sweetly, heartbreakingly innocent.

She was going to have to fix that.

But first she had to talk to him.

What time was it now? She had no idea. If she went up on deck, she could have a look and see, but she didn't feel like moving. The gang had eaten supper without her—she declined food, said she wasn't hungry, and went to look for a quiet place to hide for a while to be alone with her thoughts. Most of the day had been spent covertly watching Will as he walked several laps around the ship's deck, climbing over cannons and carefully making his way around the hull and back again, over and over again, to let off some steam. She admired his deft footing whenever he climbed up on the rail to avoid colliding with another person and the swiftness with which he moved from one side of the ship to another; she loved when he gently took his upper lip into his mouth to clear the fine beads of sweat from his thin little moustache, and the tiny frown on his face as he was deep in concentration.

He was starting to go a little bit crazy with pent-up energy. They were _all_ slowly going a bit mad on the tiny little cramped vessel, with very little room to move and stretch their legs—it was an incredibly uncomfortable feeling, especially being so used to living in Sherwood with the entire forest as their domain. It was hard to go from miles of beautiful, leafy woodland to a hundred-foot wooden boat on open water.

Her mind kept going back in the same direction. There _were_ other ways to let off that energy other than trotting around the deck and weaving through the rope works…

Djaq shook her head fiercely in an effort to clear it. She _had_ to stop thinking about that. She would drive herself crazy even quicker that way.

All she could do was wait, she told herself. She made her own intentions clear to him—now it was just a matter of waiting for his nerves to subside. In the meantime, she was going to have to sate herself with the memories of their last encounter, of his lips moving warmly against hers, his hands sliding all over her torso under her shirt, the way he scratched so desperately at her bodice to rid her of that terribly obstructive garment. Shivers coursed through her as her body remembered the feel of those rough carpenter's hands on her bare skin.

She peeked quickly at herself and sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. She remembered why she wore that leather bodice to begin with—it kept her from being a walking temperature gauge. Once—_once—_she went without it on a spring afternoon, and she felt fine until Allan teasingly asked her, "Feeling a bit chilly, Djaq?", whereupon she dashed, red-faced, back to her little curtained-off bunk in the camp and put it back on. Of course, chilly temperatures weren't the _only_ thing she'd react to—she could easily blame it on the cold if anybody saw it, but she'd know what was _really_ making her nipples peak under her shirt.

And she'd have to find a reasonable way of explaining her missing bodice to her friends.

Her legs were beginning to prickle from being folded up and held against her for such a long time. Wincing, she unfurled them and laid them flat on the floor below her. The sounds above her head—the footsteps of people walking along the deck and the idle chatter of passengers and shouted orders to crew members—had all stopped some time ago. It sounded like the activity of the daytime finally died down. Maybe now was the best time to go up and get some fresh air. She was growing tired of breathing the stale, damp, _'fragrant'_ air down here in the hold.

Her backside was numb from sitting for so long, as she discovered when she tried to stand up and found it oddly difficult to do so. She carefully walked herself up the ladder and through the hatch, pulling herself up onto the deck.

It was _late._

The sky was black, and tonight it was cloudy—no visible moon, and only the occasional patch of sky visible through the clouds—and _terribly_ cold. She hugged her coat futilely, wishing it would keep her warmer, and stepped out towards the rail. There was a good wind, she noted absently. The sails were bulged outwards, and the speed carrying them forward caused a stiff wind to barrage the deck.

The wind, and what it meant, made her shiver. The more the wind blew, the faster they would move. The faster they went, the closer they grew to Acre—and to whatever might happen there.

Her bottom jaw began to tremble involuntarily as she shivered. She didn't want to go back down with the gang to sleep yet. She'd spent all day down there, breathing that stale air, and didn't want to go back to it just yet.

With the air roaring in her ears, she didn't hear the man walk up behind her. She had no idea that he was there until folds of a cloth settled over her shoulders. She jumped.

"What—!"

"You looked cold," Will said as he came to stand next to her, leaning on his elbows on the wood rail.

The cloth around her was made of some sort of silky fabric; it was a pinkish colour on one side, and cream colour on the other, long and wide and reasonably heavy. She pulled it around herself, finding more cloth in the folds than she would have thought there was. Almost right away she warmed up.

"Thank you," she said softly, smiling at him. She was more than a little surprised to see him here, all alone with her, especially now while it was late and there were few other people around. "Where did you find this?" She asked, trying to keep the conversation going, but keep it innocent so he wouldn't run away.

"Does it matter?"

"Will—"

"I bartered it off of one of the sailors," he admitted.

"Bartered?"

Nod.

"Bartered," she said, this time voiced it as a statement rather than a question.

"Yes. I—I know you're cold here, and that you lost your… bodice," he said, his words halting and hesitating as he said the word. She wondered if he was thinking about the night she misplaced it. Probably. "I don't like seeing you cold and uncomfortable."

She decided not to ask anything further about it—it was probably rude and she was grateful for the cloth. He was so impossibly sweet; he knew she was missing her bodice and that she was freezing. So he'd somehow obtained something to keep her warm on the cold nights on board the ship.

When she turned to thank him again, all she saw was the hatch to the hold closing.

She noticed later that his little leather belt-purse, where he kept what little money he had, was missing.

o…o

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I couldn't resist a slightly porny explanation for why Djaq a) lost her bodice, and b) gained a shawl. I love writing a thoughtful!Will—he's so sweet, isn't he?

I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter! And please review if you feel so inclined.


	3. Three

By now the sexual tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife and spread it on a bagel. (Bad analogy is bad.) They're going to snap—but only if I let them! Poor Will and Djaq. Maybe I'm just a mean old lady.

Thanks again to everybody who's been reading so far! It's very encouraging to see so many people interested in this story.

Disclaimer: I don't claim any ownership of Robin Hood, or the characters therein.

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o…o

She was going to make him absolutely crazy. For days, she'd teased him relentlessly—nuzzling his neck, sitting so very close to him, discreetly brushing his hand with hers or grazing his thigh with her fingertips when nobody was looking. How he'd enjoyed it, revelled in the sweet torment she inflicted upon him. It was wonderful.

Except when it frightened him.

At first, he thoroughly enjoyed her forwardness, her taking initiative. He felt awkward, clumsily inexperienced, and so very unsure of himself when confronted with their newly found romantic feelings towards one another; he didn't know how far Djaq _would_ or _wouldn't_ let him go, what he could do that wouldn't scare her or offend her. For that matter, he didn't know how, exactly, to go about doing anything. He'd never done this before—any of it—and found himself wading into rather dismayingly unfamiliar territory. At least when _she_ took the lead, he knew she was doing what she felt comfortable with and could copy her actions himself.

But didn't she realize what she was doing to him? He could only restrain himself so much, and when he feared he might lose control, he would back away from her to collect himself. She must not have realized how much she affected him, how much every little smile and lingering look, the tiniest little touches all sent him _reeling._ Unless—no, he couldn't imagine…

Did she _want_ to go further?

He hadn't considered that before.

It was hardly something he could outright ask her. It was possible—had it been another woman, he might have thought that she was being quite obvious. But equally possible was that Djaq simply had no idea how beautiful and alluring she was. It was difficult to resist her. He wanted to do right by her—certainly didn't want to savage her like a wild animal. And what if… what if they _did…?_ And she regretted it later. He didn't want to put her through that; he didn't think he'd survive such a thing, either.

It would be best to do things properly. Wouldn't it?

The more he thought about it, though, the more he wondered if perhaps it was all in vain. But he didn't want to hurt her—he loved her. He didn't… but he _wanted_ to… except that he couldn't _possibly…_ no matter how much he wanted her…

His head was a mass of half-thoughts and contradictions. No matter how much he wanted Djaq, wanted _all of her,_ he feared more than anything that he would scare her away with his actions. Then again, if he wasted this chance with her, he would surely hate himself. He didn't know what to do, and the more he thought about it, the more it made his head hurt.

Maybe he shouldn't think about it so much.

He folded his arms around his knees and rested his forehead against them. Wide coils of thick, fat rope surrounded him, rose up over his head; he was sitting inside the coils of some mooring rope sitting on a corner of the deck, making a private little place for him to hide. He was afraid that if he got up and walked around the deck again, that Djaq might find him and… possibly ambush him.

So he hid down here to be alone with his thoughts, but thinking only made him even more confused, and the confusion only added to the tension he was already feeling.

Much of that tension was caused by Djaq, and her apparent determination to drive him blissfully mad; the rest was a combination of things. He was antsy and uncomfortable on this tiny little ship. There was only so much jumping and climbing that he could do in such a confined space, and he _longed_ for the freedom to take a horse and ride through the forest until he was exhausted or to lose himself in the sprawling green for miles and miles. The fresh food on board was starting to run low, and they would soon be eating dry rations and salted fish, nonstop, for the remainder of the journey, which didn't appeal to any of them, least of all Will, who wasn't particularly fond of fish, salted or not.

And then there was the knowledge that this damned cramped, tiny, dank little boat was taking him further from home than he had ever been before in his life. He didn't know what lay ahead, and it scared him, filled his head with frightening 'whatif' thoughts. The unknown scared him, and with so much weight on their choice and the actions they would later have to take, it made him worry for their collective futures.

And, of course, Djaq, whose very existence turned him into a hopeless oozing puddle of lovesick mush.

She came up twice. Naturally she would—he couldn't get the woman out of his mind.

The last time he'd let himself get carried away with her, the night she lost her bodice because of him, played over and over again in his head. Her touch was gentle and far too light on his shoulders and across his back, and she pressed herself thoroughly against him—he remembered feeling her breasts against his chest, less covered by that cumbersome leather clothing. Her lips on his neck tickled, even when she bit him. And when she threw her leg over his hip, he very nearly gave into that first instinct, the animal lust that told him to have her right there on the deck and the consequences be damned.

It took an extraordinary grasp on willpower to make him tear himself away from her.

"What're you doin' down there?"

He startled and lurched as far up as he could, which was to his knees as he was trapped in the rope coils. "Gyah!"

"Hey!"

Will looked up to see who was there. It was Allan.

"You frightened me," the younger man gasped.

"You scared _me,"_ Allan shot back. "You look awfully high-strung today. Something wrong?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Uh-huh. What're you doing sitting in there?"

"I'm… hiding."

Snort. "Hiding?" He asked. "What from? You're a pretty thing, but I don't think that them sailors would go for you unless they were really desperate."

He looked up with his eyebrows raised. It felt good to have Allan back, if he was completely honest with himself. He was the only one of the gang that could make humour out of any situation—make humour _on purpose,_ unlike Much who managed to be funny without wanting to be.

"Really, what's so scary that you've gotta hide in a rope coil?"

He didn't answer right away.

"Will?"

"I'm just hiding from somebody, all right?" He said quickly, realizing that seeing somebody talking to a pile of mooring rope might give away his hiding place.

A rakish grin lit his friend's face. "You're not hiding from _Djaq,_ are you?" He drawled.

"So what if I am? Look, could you please go? I wanted to be alone—"

But he couldn't finish that sentence, because Allan was laughing so hard. He sighed—of course Allan would laugh at such a thought. It was probably unfathomable to his friend that somebody would _run away and hide from a girl,_ particularly a girl who was so clearly infatuated. Except that Allan was much more confident than he was and, he had no doubt, had much more experience with women than he did.

The man wiped his eyes as he recovered from his laughter. "I'm not bein' funny, mate, but you sure your head's on proper?"

"Yes, I'm sure!" He hissed, his face turning red. Why wouldn't he go away?

Allan shook his head. "Dunno what's wrong with you, Will. That girl's—"

"Woman."

"Right—look, Djaq's mad for you. Why would you waste that?"

"Who are you talking to?" The heavily accented voice came from nearby, accompanied by light footfalls.

Djaq.

"Huh? Me?" Allan asked. Looking up, Will could see him backing up to the coiled rope that served as his hiding place. He held his breath and didn't dare move.

She didn't look down at him, and instead stopped in front of Allan.

"Yes, you," she answered. "Unless you have taken to talking to yourself."

"Doesn't sound like too bad an idea, to be honest," he sighed. "Myself's the only person what'll listen to me anymore."

"Stop talking that way," she ordered. Although he couldn't see her, he imagined that she was standing there with her hands planted on her hips and giving him that stern, no-nonsense frown. "If you need to talk, I will listen to you. I do not hate you."

"I still dunno why that is."

"Because," she said, then paused briefly. Will wondered what expression was playing over her face—she could be a very difficult person to read. "You are a good man, Allan a-Dale."

He heard Allan sigh.

Even though they had all tentatively accepted Allan back into the group after he tried to help them escape the mercenaries, then helped them fight them, most of them were still extremely wary of their once-former comrade—and they made absolutely no effort to hide their unease from him, undoubtedly making him feel both guilty and unwelcome. Except for Djaq and himself, the rest of the gang was only acting vaguely decent to the man.

"Thanks," he said. "It means a lot, coming from you."

Pause.

"So… what're you up to?" He asked casually.

"I was hoping to find Will," she sighed. "But he is _awfully_ difficult to find these days."

"Yeah, I've… I've noticed that. Something wrong with him?"

Will breathed a quiet sigh of relief that he was playing dumb. Thank goodness.

He heard a shift of clothing—Djaq shrugging.

"I do not know. I have not been able to talk to him long enough to ask him."

"What is it between you two, anyway?"

His heart stopped. What was Allan getting at, asking such personal questions? He already knew of his encounter with Djaq in the barn, of their admission to one another and the kiss they shared when they were afraid they were going to die. What more information did he want, unless he wanted to know if they already _had—_

"We already told you what happened," she said curtly, interrupting his thoughts.

"I know that, but, I mean… what's going on? You've sort of been _chasing_ after that boy, haven't you?"

Another sigh from Djaq. "I do not know if I should tell you."

"What, don't you trust me?"

"It is not that—it is just private."

"Oh?"

The silence between them was a very _loud_ silence, he noted absently.

"I want to make the most of the time I have with him," she blurted out quickly. Through a tiny gap in the ropes, he saw her arms shoot down by her sides, her hands balled into fists. "I am so afraid of what might happen after we arrive in Acre. I am—I do not even know what will happen _tomorrow._ We could be attacked by sea monsters or pirates, we could capsize in a freak storm."

Will held his breath, not wanting to make any unnecessary noise and miss anything she was about to say. Something told him it was important.

"I was so, _so_ frightened in the barn. I thought we were going to die," her voice was heartbreakingly sad. "I kissed him knowing that it would be all we would ever get—one kiss. That was it. I waited too long to tell him that I loved him, and then it was too late."

Silence.

"And now we have this second chance. I would hate to waste it—I would never live with myself if I let that happen. I only… I wish I could tell him."

The blood rushed in his ears. She _really_ felt that way?

He hadn't thought of the whole situation the same way she had—and now that he _had,_ he realized how right she was. It was like a light in a darkened room, the way this realization dawned on him. They really were _incredibly_ lucky to have escaped with their lives, to have this new opportunity to explore their love for each other. It would be foolish and downright _stupid_ not to take advantage of what they had, while they had the time to enjoy it.

Before what amounted to their deathbed confession of love, he would never have imagined that the young Saracen woman would ever have feelings for him; she was never particularly girlish to begin with, and certainly the words 'falling in love' never before seemed compatible with Djaq. She just wasn't the type. If anything at all, he thought she would have fancied Allan over any of them. It was amazing to know that she, who was so beautiful and clever and wonderful and could have had her pick of any man in the world that she liked, wanted _him._

"You don't think he already knows this?" Allan asked her after a beat.

"I do not know."

Pause.

"Are you sure you do not know where he is?"

"I… can't say that I do, no," he said, artfully dodging the answer and a lie at the same time.

Sigh. "Well… thank you for listening to me. I will go look for him elsewhere."

As he heard her footsteps walking away from him, his breath released in a slow hiss between his teeth. He was almost unwilling to believe what he'd just heard. It would be too good to be true, wouldn't it? Except that it wasn't. It was all real.

Allan poked his head down into his hiding spot. "D'you hear that all right, Will?"

Nod. "Help me up—I've gotta go talk to her." He reached up a hand.

"Try not to be too loud, all right?" He said with a cheeky grin as he pulled him up. "Or else, be _really_ loud on purpose—we could all use the show."

"Allan, stop it."

"Sorry."

"Ouch!" He winced as he unfurled his legs and climbed over the edge of his rope confines. "Which way did she go?"

"That way," he pointed vaguely towards the hatch. "Now, Will, you've got to find that _one_ spot that drives her crazy, you know? Like, take her from—"

"_Allan!"_ His face burned red with embarrassment. It was bad enough that Much kept mentioning 'honey' around him with a funny look on his face. He didn't need his friend offering him explicit operating instructions.

He was snorting into his hands. "I just thought you might want some advice."

"We've only just had you back—it _would_ be a shame if I had to throw you overboard."

The man gave him a shove. "Go! Before you start thinking about it and you back out."

Still blushing furiously, Will made off in search of Djaq.

o…o

0…0…0…0…0

Oh goodness, I really I _am_ just a mean old lady, aren't I? I cut you off _right_ before The Sexing. I swear to you, once again, _the reason for the rating is coming! _You see why this never would have worked as a one-shot? It took three chapters just to get this far, and there isn't even any sex yet! Curse my long-windedness. I _have_ just noticed something, though—these chapters are less than half the length of a standard chapter for HF. Wow.

Thank you for taking the time to read. Feedback is greatly appreciated, but not demanded.


	4. Four

Okay, I lied. I felt sort of badly about cutting the last chapter off right before it got interesting and I decided to post this chapter mid-week to make up for it. This is also a fairly long chapter, _and_ it's the smut part. It's taken four chapters _but I've finally gotten to the lemon!_ A special thanks once again to MissWed, who read over the sections of this chapter that I was unsure of and helped me through my jitters.

In case you hadn't figured it out, this chapter does contain fairly graphic sex scenes—if this sort of thing bothers you then you might want to get out now before you burn your retinas. It won't curl your hair, but you might not want to read it at work or where anybody important can walk up behind you and read over your shoulder. Just a fair warning.

Disclaimer: Until the check clears, I don't own Robin Hood. Those lucky BBC bastards do.

0…0…0…0…0

o…o

There was a small room—almost like a cupboard—near the back of the ship's hold. Djaq had stumbled across it by accident a few days ago, leaning against what she _thought_ was a wall and falling through a door that opened quite suddenly behind her, and decided that the little hidey-hole might be useful at some point. The door to the cupboard looked like part of a wall, so it was no wonder that nobody had found it yet. There only two crates inside and there was one of the tiny little portholes high up on the wall, allowing fresh air to get in and making it suitable to use as a room. The dim light of late evening seeped into the tiny little space, providing enough light to see by, and a lantern was lit and resting on top of one of the crates, throwing off a flickering orange-yellow glow and making the shadows dance on the walls around her. It was probably as close to a _private room_ as she was going to find on the entire boat.

It was good enough for what she needed.

She stood by the door, holding it open a crack and looking out, waiting for him to pass by and ready to spring on him the second she saw him. It seemed like _ambush_ was going to be the only way she'd be able to talk to him. But she _would_ get his attention, even if she had to do it by force.

_Thum, thum, thum._

Dull, heavy footsteps approached her hiding place, and her heart jumped into her throat. It was Will. A wave of intense nervousness shot through her whole body, prickling in her chest and making her heart thud _painfully_ hard. She very nearly backed out on her previously solid resolve, but she steeled herself; she _had_ to do this.

_Thum, thum, thum._

As he passed the door, she opened it wider and grabbed him by the arm, dragging him backwards and hauling him forcefully into the dark little cupboard. He gasped raggedly, flailing his arms and struggling against her. She quickly covered his mouth so he didn't draw attention to them and closed the door, leaning back against it to keep him from running away.

His eyes were wide and frightened as she looked into his face but when his gaze rested on her, he visibly relaxed and released a relieved sigh around her hand.

"You can't _do_ that," he breathed, gently taking her hand away from his mouth. "You could've scared me to death!"

Had she been herself, she would have said something about having been a physician for a long time and never seen somebody die of fright, but she wasn't in the mood for joking at the moment.

"I am sorry," she said softly. "I just—I _have_ to speak to you. It has been so difficult for me to talk to you that it seemed as though ambush was the only way to do it."

Will didn't say anything in response to that. She didn't expect him to.

They stood facing each other; she still kept her position backed up against the cupboard door, effectively cutting off his only escape. He looked heart-stoppingly beautiful in the dim orange-yellow light of the single lantern, his face half lit and half darkened and his eyes practically glowing with an odd intensity. She didn't dare touch him, no matter how badly her hands itched to take his—she knew he was already nervous at her sudden surprise attack, and she didn't need to do anything to make it worse.

For a long time, they stood staring at one another, neither of them daring to move or speak. Then, suddenly, Will lurched forward and planted his hands on the door behind her, one on either side of her shoulders, trapping her. Djaq gave a little gasp in surprise. His face was so close to hers, his gaze so intense…

"Will…" his name was a whisper on her lips.

"I heard what you said," he murmured.

"What?"

"What you said to Allan—about me."

"Oh!" She gasped quietly, covering her mouth with a hand. She hadn't expected that; while she'd wanted him to hear what she had to say, she'd actually wanted to _tell_ him.

"Do you mean it?" He asked.

"Of course I did—I _do,"_ she replied, almost before the words left his mouth. Why would he think she wasn't sincere? "I love you, Will Scarlett. We are _very_ lucky to have this second chance together—I would be very disappointed if something happens and I die knowing that I did not take advantage of it."

She watched his expression soften as her words sank in. And then, without a word, he lunged forward and covered her mouth with his.

_That_ took her by surprise. Not that he'd started the kiss—he did that sometimes—but because the kiss was so roughly passionate. Before now he'd always been so timid and unsure of himself, but this time it was different; the kiss was bruising and forceful, his mouth moving quickly against hers, swallowing her startled cries and soft whimpers with every caress of his lips.

His hands dropped to her hips and clasped onto her, holding tightly; his thumbs flicked up under the hem of her shirt and slid so lightly over her bare skin, and she sighed shallowly, delighting in this the first decent contact she'd had with him in days. As the kisses deepened and his tongue invaded her mouth, she grasped at his shoulders to keep herself upright—it was all she could do as he sucked the strength from her body with every kiss.

When he tore his mouth away from hers and left her limply pressed against him and gripping his shoulders for dear life, a small whimper escaped her lips at the loss of contact. Only one thought was going through her head—he had _better not_ be stopping.

"I love you," he rasped in her ear. Those words, breathy and shaking, made her heart melt. "But I don't…"

He trailed off there. The pause might have lasted all of about a second, but in her mind it was painstakingly _long._ In that one second. She saw all of her fears flash before her and felt so incredibly, uncomfortably, frighteningly vulnerable, and she hated that feeling. She couldn't force him to do something he didn't want to do, but what if… what if he didn't want her? She didn't know if she'd survive that.

"I don't want to hurt you," he said finally.

"Oh, Will…"

"Tell me to stop," he went on. "Tell me, and I will."

"No. Don't you _dare_ stop," she ordered. To punctuate this, she pulled him back down to her and kissed him firmly.

Whatever remained of his already weakened resolve was gone; she could practically _hear_ the last of his self-control dissolve as he pressed her roughly into the wooden door, once again consuming both of them in intensely heated kisses. His mouth seared as he pressed kisses to her lips, her jaw, her neck, her collarbone—her skin burned wherever he touched, her stomach fluttered, her heart pounded hard in her chest. That hot excitement flared once again, making her shiver and tingle all over, all of it compounded by the knowledge that, this time, nothing would interrupt them.

His hands left her hips, but she didn't even have time to be disappointed before he moved them underneath her thighs and pulled her up off the ground. Djaq cried out softly as he lifted her further and further up against the door, a little bit at a time. She wrapped her legs around his waist, leaving her sandwiched between Will and the door, their faces now level.

He snorted softly when she tightened her grip around him with her arms and her legs. She could feel him growing hard against her through their clothing, and she rolled her hips into his. He growled into her neck and responded, roughly grinding her into the door behind her. That contact made her squeal in delight, but he quickly silenced her with another kiss—she would _have_ to keep herself quiet. Only the thin wooden walls around them separated their actions from everybody on board the ship.

"Shush," he purred, his breath tickling her ear. He took the lobe into his mouth and bit, then mouthed little nips and frustratingly light kisses back behind her ear and down her neck, making her struggle to keep reasonably quiet.

He was going to drive her absolutely crazy, and she was thoroughly enjoying every second of it.

He moved again, pushing her higher and higher. She had to relinquish the contact of her hips with his, which she did very reluctantly.

She went further up, and now her neck was level with his mouth and he kissed down her throat and into the hollow at the base of her neck. He kept her there only a moment before he moved her again, further up, until he was at eye-contact level with her chest.

He looked up at her questioningly, that familiar uncertainty coming back into his face as he waited for her permission to continue. She nodded swiftly, neither knowing nor caring what it was he wanted to do as long as he _did it,_ and threw her head back as he began mouthing her right breast through her shirt. She bit her lip so hard it nearly bled and clawed her fingers through his hair, squirming against him, revelling in the feel of his warm mouth on her sensitive skin.

She tried—_tried!—_to keep quiet and not to make a sound, but it was so very difficult to do. Her lungs burned as she breathed and her legs trembled as she tightened them around him even more. She felt the slick heat between her legs as she moved against him along with the dulled sensation of his tongue over her clothed breast.

This scenario had unfolded in her mind many times before, but never like this. She usually imagined it as taking place somewhere in the forest, far away from the gang in a private little grotto somewhere or cushioned on a springy bed of green in the cool shade of the towering trees in Sherwood. In her mind, it had always been peaceful and serene, warm and quiet, the two of them escaping the madness that was Nottingham in one another's warm embraces and passionate kisses. It was always an idealized lovemaking, sweet and perfect. She never expected she might first have Will Scarlett on the floor—it was going to _have_ to be on the floor, they had nowhere else to go in here—of a tiny dark cupboard on board a ship.

Will's hands dragged up her sides, under her shirt, grazing her bare skin with his fingernails. It tickled enticingly. He brought them behind her and stroked up and down her back and then back around her sides and over her stomach, all the while never taking his mouth away from her breast. He gently bit down on the nipple, making her gasp raggedly and dig her nails into his shoulders.

_Keep quiet._

But as he wetly mouthed her breast again, licking away the sting of the bite one warm stroke of his tongue after another, a long slow moan escaped her, unbidden, and he stopped. She growled low and angry in her throat, tried to pull him back, but he resisted. When she looked at him, she saw a lopsided smile on his face and a look of amazement, an odd combination of expressions that made her both excited and want to giggle. She _would_ have laughed, except that it would have been completely inappropriate, and the moment was far too intense for that.

He licked again, once, experimentally, and she released her breath in a hiss.

"You _like that,_ don't you?"

Again, her actions were different now than they would have been if she had been herself. Normally, she would have kept herself in check, having learned long ago how to rein in her emotions, but she decided right now that self-control could go and hang itself.

"_Yes,"_ she groaned. "Please do not stop."

Instead of continuing, he took the neckline of her shirt in his teeth and tugged at it; she could hear a little whine low in his throat.

"Off," he growled.

"What?"

"_Off."_ He pulled again on her shirt with his teeth, harder this time.

"Wait!" She gasped, her mind concocting one coherent thought through the lusty haze in her head.

"Huhn?"

This time she couldn't help it—she giggled. Will's eyes were glazed over and he still had a loose bit of her shirt in his mouth; his hair was badly rumpled where she'd dragged her hands through it before.

"Stop biting—you will rip it," she said.

"So?" He tugged again, and she reached up to wrench the fabric from his mouth.

"Oh, yes, that will be _very_ easy to explain to everybody. That I am not wearing a shirt anymore because Will _chewed it off_ like a wild animal!"

He laughed, leaning his forehead against her shoulder, then lifted his head and kissed her neck. She wiggled the shoulder, making him move away from it with a questioning frown.

"Back up a bit," she whispered. "And try not to drop me."

With a nod, he obeyed, putting his hands underneath her backside to steady her as she let his shoulders go and wriggled away from the door behind her. The only thing supporting her now was Will, while she took the hem of her shirt and slowly pulled it up. She did it painstakingly slow on purpose, watching his face as she did so and taking a little jolt of excitement at his expression of utter awe and his mouth falling slightly open.

Inch by tantalizing inch, she pulled her shirt up, forcing herself to go slowly just to tease him. Finally, she jerked the whole thing off and threw it to the ground in one swift motion, leaving her bare from the waist up and waiting, braced between him and the door, for his reaction.

He neither said nor did anything, just stared at her bare chest with a look on his face not unlike the one he wore when he saw her accidentally. Utter _shock._ A pink blush was creeping into his face, turning his ears red and staining his cheeks, and again Djaq was reminded about how little experience Will had with the opposite sex—she had no doubt that _she_ was the only woman he'd ever seen naked. She could only imagine how daunting it was for him to be confronted with this, with _her,_ knowing that this was real and that she would let him do anything. His sudden shyness was in stark contrast to the eagerness just before.

She looped her left arm around his neck and stroked the side of his face with the other hand, gently bringing her fingernails through his hair and resting her palm on his cheek.

"Will," she whispered, trying to get his attention. "Will…"

He looked up, and then hastily began to apologize in a jumble of words. "I—I'm sorry—it's—I can't—I haven't…"

She pressed her finger to his lips to silence him.

"Hush. It is all right. Take your time."

There was a pause then. She didn't want to rush him, but _oh,_ this was so frustrating.

Just when she was starting to get antsy, he lurched forward with a renewed fervour and began planting kisses along her collar bone, across her chest, and down between her breasts. She leaned back again and sighed, letting him take his time.

The shyness soon subsided and was replaced by his bold actions of moments earlier. He ran a rough, calloused thumb over her breast, making her groan again. She wriggled under his exploring hands, arching into his touch when he came in contact with her nipple; she gripped his shoulders and encouraged him with soft words and pleading whimpers.

Frustratingly, he stopped again, and she growled at him.

"Hush," he breathed hotly in her ear. "You're being too loud."

"And _you_ are going too slowly!" She shot back, keeping her voice low.

He grinned. That look made her breath catch in her throat.

"Oh!" She cried out and then bit her lip _hard_ and concentrated her efforts on staying _quiet._

His mouth was on her breast, the sensations now much more intense with her shirt discarded and she melted in his arms as his tongue swiped over her breast again and again. If she didn't already know better, she'd have thought he'd done this before. He licked and bit, tugged gently on her nipple with his teeth—until all she could do was whimper and desperately hold onto him.

Back to her lips now—plundering her mouth and gently biting on her lower lip. When he pulled away, she followed him, determined to keep as much contact between them as possible.

"Djaq," he growled her name between kisses, but she didn't stop.

She lipped down his neck, pulling his shirt down in the front to gain more access to his warm bare skin and mouthing kisses as far as she could without tearing his clothing off. He grunted softly and tried to back away again.

"Djaq." His voice was raspy. "Djaq, my arms—"

She came up again and silenced him with another kiss, her hands in his hair. He was sweating and his chest heaved against hers; the coarse, scratchy material of his tunic against her bare chest was simultaneously irritating and arousing. His arms tensed and began to tremble slightly under her backside.

Suddenly, his hold gave way and with an incredible jolt she found herself sitting in a heap on the floor.

He'd dropped her.

"I'm sorry!" He said quickly, crouching in front of her immediately. "Are you all right?"

She couldn't help but laugh, tossing her head back against the door with her whole body racked with laughs. "Is this what you were trying to tell me?"

"That my arms were going to give? Um… yes. It's hard to hold you up."

She was still laughing.

"Will you stop that, please?" He begged. "If they're going to have to hear _something_ out there, I'd rather it not be you laughing."

She took a few deep breaths and calmed herself down, leaning back against the wall and smiling at him as he knelt before her. He looked guilty and apologetic.

"I _am_ fine," she assured him. "Not hurt. Just surprised."

"Maybe we should stay on the floor, then."

"Good idea." And with that she pounced on him, knocking him flat on his back on the floor.

"What—!"

She knelt over him, straddling his hips and leaning over him, and kissed him swiftly.

"_You,"_ she purred, "are far too overdressed."

Her fingers scrabbled at the ties of his cloak, undoing the knot and moving on to his tunic, sliding her hands up his stomach. Her touch was soft and gentle, tickling him; he squirmed helplessly under her, wriggling and grinding his hips into hers. She squealed, returning the action in kind and thoroughly delighting in watching his eyes roll back and the feral growl rumbling up in his throat. He squeezed the outsides of her thighs where his hands were resting as the growl faded into a rumbling sigh.

She could have tormented him a bit more, but she decided not to overdo it and set about removing his tunic and shirt. Years of experience in disrobing men for surgery let her make short work of the garments, pulling them up his torso and over his head and arms and flinging them somewhere off to the side. Just then, he looked so sweetly surprised to find his clothing discarded so quickly and he looked like he was wondering where his things had gone.

Now that he was suitably bare, she flattened her hands on his shoulders and gently smoothed them down his chest and stomach, following them with her mouth and leaving soft little butterfly kisses down his body. He trembled and breathed heavily, and then began to slide his hands from her hips slowly up her waist. For a moment, she stilled and sighed, letting herself enjoy his ministrations a little while. His hands moved around to her back, where they became still.

Even though she'd seen him in various states of undress before—and not always to his knowledge—her stomach still fluttered as she looked at him. His arms and shoulders were well-muscled and defined, but the rest of him was thin and lithe, with a narrow waist and subtle curves that had absolutely no business being on a man. His collarbones jutted out above his chest and she could just barely see the contours of some of his ribs through his skin; she gingerly ran her fingers along the visible bones and watched his skin come out in goosebumps in response to her touch. His shoulders and arms and chest were dotted all over with the old scars of a difficult life. He was pale, so very fair—Djaq found the stark contrast between his light flesh and her own dark hands beautiful.

As she looked once again into his gorgeous, expressive green eyes, she decided that he was perfect. Just—perfect.

She resumed her action and continued placing those light little kisses all the way down his chest. His muscles tensed under her lips as she went steadily downward, to his stomach and then even lower. When she dipped her tongue into his navel, she heard him sharply intake a breath and hold it. The last thing she did was take the waist of his trousers in her teeth, pulling it out a bit and letting it snap back down against him—and apparently that was all the teasing he was going to take. He reached down quickly and hooked his hands behind her legs and dragged her back up to him, surprising her.

Looking down at him, with his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and his eyes lustily half-lidded and his chest heaving under her with heavy breaths, she felt her chest tighten. He was impossibly, heartbreakingly beautiful. She bent and kissed him again, sweetly and gently this time, holding herself up with one hand and letting the other go no further than his face while she cupped his cheek.

Even in the midst of this, her whole body hot and tingling and aching for him, she couldn't help but realize that even with their miraculous second chance, thoughts of the future were bittersweet. She knew that even if nothing happened between here and Acre, anything could happen while they were there—they all went into this mission willingly, knowing that there might not be any way out—and that the hard wooden floorboards in a little cupboard on a ship was the closest thing the pair would probably ever have to a marriage bed. It was angrily disappointing and unfortunate and _horribly_ unfair.

She would have liked to have had much, _much_ more time with him. If it was at all possible, she might have even…

She could have married him. Yes, she would have wanted to be with him forever, as his wife. The idea of being tied down to another person in matrimony never appealed to her at the best of times, and at worst actually frightened her. But the thought of being with Will Scarlett for the rest of her life, of sharing his bed this way every night, being free to love him as much as she liked—she wanted nothing more.

Only she knew that they probably wouldn't make it that far. That was what made her want to take advantage of her time with him while they still could: the knowledge that there was more than a chance that one or both of them would not live to see life after this voyage.

For a moment, she lost herself in his green eyes, deep and beautiful and expressive, as she was once again confronted with this grim knowledge. It scared her.

Below her, Will frowned, no doubt wondering why she'd stopped; then the frown melted into a sly smile. Before she realized what was happening, he rolled his hips and turned them over, switching their positions so that _she_ was on her back on his cloak on the floor and he was kneeling above her. He bent low and kissed her deeply, sweetly, and she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back with equal fervour.

With that kiss, her resolve came back—she knew she had absolutely no influence over what was going to happen to them in future. It was all beyond her control. She would enjoy him as thoroughly as she could, for as much time as they had.

Towering over her, he took control. He explored every inch of her naked flesh with his mouth—from her neck and shoulders to her breasts and all the way down her stomach, making her squirm and sigh happily. The connection of skin on skin, his bare chest pressed against her, sent a jolt through her whole body.

Now he was trying to do two things at once. He licked and mouthed at her breasts, moving slowly between them, while his hands were lower on her hips and trying to work out how she'd tied her trousers. She purred softly, trying to grip him by the back of his hair—this would have been _so much easier_ when his hair was longer—to make him go where she wanted him. He laughed softly, a low chuckle in his throat, and complied, his broad tongue on her nipple making her feel as if she was going to melt into the floor.

It soon became apparent that he didn't have the presence of mind to negotiate her clothing ties while his frustrated growls came up in his throat and rumbled delectably on her skin; growing impatient as he steadily made zero progress, she untied the leather cord keeping her clothes in place and kicked off her boots to make it easier for him. He sighed with relief and quickly dragged her trousers and undergarments over her hips and down her legs. She wriggled against him, aiding him in divesting her of the last of her clothing.

Fully naked now before him, she felt _herself_ falter this time. A combination of nerves and excitement jumbled together inside her, making her heart thud in her chest and her skin tingle wherever his body made contact with hers. She turned her head to the side, away from him, and waited; she felt nervous and it showed in the way she trembled and gently bit her lower lip. Yet another thing that always worked out differently in her head; she'd always imagined herself as being a bit more confident in this endeavour. She had never been this nervous before, but then she'd never felt quite so strongly before. At the time, she thought she'd loved the few young men with whom she'd had a frenzied half-fumble as a teenager when the adults weren't looking—but now, years older and infinitely more experienced in the world, she knew that they were just passing girlish fancies. That she was so hopelessly in love with Will compounded her nerves and made her more than a little anxious.

She turned back again, and her worried lip-biting stopped and she grinned shakily. He was still hovering over her, supporting himself on his hands planted on either side of her arms, and his gaze moved slowly up and down her body with an awed expression on his face.

"Yes?" She asked, the tiniest little fringe of nervousness in her voice.

He came back up to look her in the eye and snapped his mouth closed. Then he gulped—_audibly gulped—_and her grin broke into a broad smile.

She couldn't stay nervous. She used this moment of awe to catch him off guard and turned them over again so that she was on top. He looked a little surprised to find himself once again on his back and it was enough to break him from his reverie.

"This is hardly fair," he whispered.

She was prepared to say something back, something tart, but any words broke off in a gurgle as he chanced touching her. Her limbs buckled beneath her and she dropped slightly; his fingers kept moving, sliding aggravatingly slowly against her and making her shiver. Instinctively, she bucked against his hand, trying to get even more contact between them. Again, he stroked her and she had to bite her lip to keep from making a sound.

Her actions encouraged him and he kept going, teasing and pinching and delicately caressing. Oh, he was good. With every stroke, a small warm bubble in the pit of her stomach heated up, hotter and hotter until his touch burned and her breaths came raggedly. Hotter, hotter. She ground her hips into his hand again and again, craving more contact, more of his touch. As he willingly complied with her wordless demand, she gave up trying to keep quiet and began voicing tiny little mewls and low groans around shallow gasps.

Warmer, warmer.

The awed look returned to his face at her obvious pleasure, knowing that _he_ was the cause of it. Her eyes fluttered closed and her head dropped to his shoulder.

Closer, closer.

She kept up the rhythmic roll of her pelvis into his hand, encouraging him with her moans and pleading whispers.

"Will…"

The heat in her belly exploded, boiled over; her whole body convulsed and blood rushed in her ears as her arms gave out under her and she collapsed against him. His touch softened and soothed as she slowly came back down from that high, trying to catch her breath. Her skin was slick with sweat, which quickly began to chill in their cool surroundings.

She barely even noticed when his hand dropped away from her sex and came to rest on her waist.

"Djaq?"

The sound of her own name only vaguely registered through the rushing noise in her ears, the sound of her thudding heartbeat and her own heavy breathing. It was a long time before she calmed down, before her heart stopped pounding and she slowly became aware again of where she was.

Finally, she opened her eyes and looked at him, their faces level, with a loopy smile on her lips.

Her breathing slowed and steadied, and she kissed him, long warm kisses with her tongue tangling with his and her hand gently placed on his neck. He looked undeniably proud of himself, so much so that she might have giggled, but she still felt far too intense for that. And anyway, he was entitled to it—she hadn't expected him to try anything like that, much less be _good_ at it.

She didn't see him reach for her again and didn't notice it until she felt his fingers on her hypersensitive flesh, and she yelped loudly, jerking away from his touch. She quickly silenced herself and removed his hand. He looked shocked, his eyes wide and worried.

"What did I—?"

Djaq shook her head. "Not yet," she told him. "I need a moment."

He nodded, but she wasn't sure that he understood. Someday, she'd explain it to him, but not right now.

Through the heavy fabric of his trousers, she could feel him hard and pressing into her thigh. She'd almost forgotten he was still partially dressed and decided that now was the time to rectify that. When she reached for him and began to unlace his breeches, he sat up abruptly, taking her with him. She found herself sitting straddling his legs, looking confusedly up at him. It wasn't until he reached his arms around her and leaned forward that she realized what he was doing.

His boots came off quickly, added to the steadily expanding pile of discarded clothing around them. That done, he quickly lunged around and flipped her over, planting her on her back on the floor again.

"_Must_ you fight me for the upper hand?" She sighed, feigning exasperation.

"Yes."

"Oh. All right, then." She settled back on his bunched cloak on the floor.

He looked at her oddly—clearly, he'd expected her to argue with him about that. She used the momentary surprise to gain the dominant position once again.

"Hey!"

She laughed. Actively fighting for dominance hadn't been something she expected would happen; it seemed as though Will Scarlett's shyness was quelled by his passion.

When he reached down for his trousers, she swatted him on the wrists and shook her head like she was scolding a small child—she was going to have a bit of fun with him before moving on.

She traced her blunt fingernails along the inside of his thighs through his clothing, carefully avoiding his erection and feeling every muscle tense at her touch. When she heard him groan quietly and buck his hips against her, she knew she was driving him mad. Good.

With the ties on his pants now undone, she hooked her hands into the waist and slowly, _slowly,_ began to inch them down a little bit at a time. Inch, inch. As she went, she paused to mouth warm, wet kisses on the newly exposed flesh.

Inch, inch.

Every time he tried to urge her to move quicker or tried to move things along himself, she slapped his hands away and resisted, continuing her slow torment.

She lipped down the bottom of his abdomen, below his navel, following the little trail of dark hair that disappeared down below the waist of his trousers.

Inch.

"Djaq…" His voice was strained and throaty, the name burbling to his lips around low whines. His eyes were clenched closed and his hands clutched his cloak on the floor under him with a white-knuckled grip. "Djaq, please…"

How could she say no to that?

She swiftly pulled the last of his clothing off, dragging his pants over his thin hips and down his legs. He did the last of the work himself, kicking them the rest of the way off as she crawled back up his torso.

Goodness, he was… quite _gifted._ She didn't mean to stare at him, but she couldn't help herself; she unconsciously licked her lips as she stared at him, and he grinned.

She reached down and devilishly ran a hand up his length, slowly and deliberately; her hand was steady and firm and her brazen action disguising her jumbling nervousness. He nearly jumped out of his skin, his face reddening with the effort it took to keep a cry from going past his lips. All that escaped was a long strangled moan. He twitched in her hand, his hips bucking again into her touch.

Back up now, face-to-face and looking into his eyes; he looked wild, frantic, his lips parted as he panted quietly, a single bead of sweat rolling off his forehead and down his temple. He pulled her face down to his and kissed her again, hard and passionate and deliciously rough, biting her tongue and gripping the back of her neck so hard she was sure he would leave bruises.

There was a pause when the kiss broke, their lips hovering just a hair's breadth apart and breathing the same warm air. The tension was palpable between them, their warm and sweaty bodies flush against each other. His heartbeat thudded against her own chest; she could feel him trembling shallowly—or was that _her_ shaking?

Again, she reached between them, this time taking him in her hand and positioning him in the heat between her thighs where she wanted him to be. He held his breath and waited, his eyes closed and his hands grasping her hips.

"Will."

His eyes snapped open, and she nodded. She lowered herself, going slowly; his fingers dug into her flesh, but he didn't rush her. Then she stopped, took one deep, shaky breath, and took all of him, quickly. She buried her face in his shoulder to stifle her small cry of pain. She whimpered softly, raking her nails across his shoulders and trying to control herself. She knew this would hurt, and she thought she was prepared for it, but now she wasn't so sure. She gulped air in short gasps, gripping him with her thighs.

For a long time there was no movement, no sound but for their coupled ragged breathing. Djaq continued to score his shoulders and chest with her nails, grunting into his shoulder while she allowed herself to accommodate his girth.

Neither of them had any perception of time, and they didn't know how much had passed while they lay there. Eventually, Will took a chance and moved his hips, rocking against her and sending a lance of painful pleasure through her body. Another cry burst from her lips.

Even now, the concern for her was obvious in his face—she knew he was afraid he'd hurt her. All of this was as new to him as it was to her—she'd never come this far before—and she didn't want him to think he'd done something wrong. She pulled away from his shoulder and smiled shakily with her lower lip caught between her teeth. An experimental roll of her own hips into his, and the painfully uncomfortable feeling began to subside. Another roll, harder this time, doubled them with shivers; he rose up to her, pulling her down with his hands as he did so and grinding into her hips even more.

A few more awkward movements into each other, and more shared tremors until they slowly found their rhythm. They moved in tandem, with him rising every time to meet her and pulling her down and grinding their pelvises together; with every roll and thrust, the discomfort lessened and the pleasure became a little bit more intense.

She ground him soundly into the floor, lost in the combined sensations of his touch, feeling him inside her as her body gripped him, and the slow rocking of their bodies into one another; he moved easily in and out, punctuating their movements with a jerk of his hips upward, sending jolts of pleasure along with the pain through her whole body again and again.

Her heart pounded. Her head spun. There was nothing else in the world now—it was just this, and them, breathing and movement synchronized, searing hot kisses on her face and neck and shoulders. She returned them, pressing her lips to whatever of him she could get to without paying much mind to _what._

The tiny cupboard was filled with soft sounds, low moans and quiet yelps whenever one of them did something that the other particularly enjoyed. Djaq groaned, babbling incoherently in a slurred mix of Arabic and English; he was only able to voice wordless sounds of pleasure.

Will's movement became quick and erratic, his hips bucking frantically into hers, his tight grip leaving bruises on her skin where he held her so very tightly. She could feel his breathing on her shoulder and neck, rumbling and growing faster and faster. Even if she hadn't known what was happening, it wouldn't have been difficult to read—she knew he was close now.

Another grind, this one the hardest, like he was trying to crush her into his own body. His already painfully tight grip on her hips tightened even more, his whole body tensed and then shuddered—he suddenly lurched forward and clamped his teeth down on her shoulder, biting down. She felt the muffled roar as vibrations in her shoulder, coupled with her own growl of pain. He slid into her one last time, as far as he could, and stopped.

Finally, he released her flesh from his teeth and his head lolled back onto the ground. He was glistening all over with sweat and he was still shaking, his chest heaving as he caught his breath. She, too, was out of breath and shook violently, though not for the same reason, she was sure. She could barely support herself over him, her arms struggling to hold her trembling weight.

She watched him as he came back down to earth; his grasp on her relaxed, his hands turning gentle and stroking away the bruises. The glazed look in his eyes was gone as he opened them and looked at her, his expression almost unbearably sweet, all the way to a crooked, giddy smile. She felt a strange sort of peace seeing him like this, even as she was still tensely holding herself up over him.

At the time, she didn't know how he knew that she wasn't through just yet—though, looking back on it, she imagined she was quite obvious, the way she was still rocking her pelvis against him and whimpering. It may have seemed a little unfair that he'd gotten his release and she was still perched on that awkward cusp. Carefully, tentatively, no doubt remembering that she'd slapped his hand away none too long ago, he slid a hand in between them. When calloused fingers came into contact with her slick and heated flesh, her held breath escaped as a groaning sigh. Encouraged by that sound, he kept going, applied more pressure. Her eyes closed again as she let herself become consumed by his touch.

She reached her own release in just seconds, her muscles tightening around him and she finally let herself fall into his chest. He held her shuddering frame securely against him with arms that still trembled.

For a long time they simply lay there together in a tangle of arms and legs, their heavy breaths soon evening out into long sighs. She used the last of her strength to roll off of him, coming to rest on her side next to him in their dimly lit makeshift bedroom.

She began to shiver as the air chilled her sweaty body. Instinctively, she huddled closer to him, to his warmth, and snuggled into his chest. Reaching behind himself, he pulled the folds of his cloak and wrapped it around them both.

"Thank you," she murmured softly.

He hugged her close to him, kissed her lips and her cheeks and her forehead and then her lips again. He ran a warm, gentle hand down her body, from her shoulder to her hip and back again. His tender actions were so completely different from those before, and she sighed pleasantly—as much as she'd enjoyed their rough play, she _loved_ his gentleness and his soft touch.

Her eyes drooped slowly closed and her head went fuzzy, lost in his gentle warmth.

"I love you," he whispered.

"Love…" she breathed the word as she felt sleep slowly overtake her, wrapped snugly in Will's arms.

o…o

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There you have it! Four chapters in, and I've finally gotten to the actual smut bit. I hope it doesn't disappoint.

Looking back at it, I'm glad that I decided to split this story into chapters instead of posting it as one massive, enormous smuffy one-shot—it would have been far too much to digest all at once.

Feedback is, as always, much appreciated—but not demanded.


	5. Five

Maybe posting mid-week isn't such a good idea. It looks like people are too busy with school and work and so on to read fanfiction. Oh well! I'm just about finished writing this story, and when it's finished I'll post twice a week until the whole thing is done. Since the story is going to be about ten or eleven chapters long, it wouldn't be fair to put up just one chapter a week and make you wait two months just to get to read the whole thing. Until then, the standard Friday Update rule applies.

Disclaimer: Robin Hood and the characters therein are not my property.

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o…o

Warmth. That was the first thing he was aware of as he foggily roused from a pleasantly deep sleep. He forgot momentarily where he was, but memory returned in a rush as the sunlight leaked in through the little porthole high up on the cupboard wall; he was on the floor beside two crates, with the warm and heady smell of sex hanging in the air around him. He shifted slightly under the heavy weight of his cloak and the shawl and clothing heaped on top of him, and then realized that his arms were firmly wrapped around…

Djaq made the smallest, quietest little noise as she snuggled closer to him in her sleep. He looked down at her, laying there next to him on her stomach with her arms tucked under her sleeping body; her head was turned into his shoulder, warming him with her steady, even breathing. Her hair was deliciously rumpled from sleep and their rough play, her cheeks rosy and pink—from here he could see the broken skin and dark, circular bruise beginning to form on her right shoulder where he'd bitten her the night before. He stroked the mark gently, carefully, with his fingertips and wished that he hadn't done it, hadn't marred her beautiful body in the heat of passion like he was some kind of wild animal.

He moved his hand, dancing his fingers delicately over her skin around to the back of her shoulder and down the dip of her spine, all the way down to her buttocks—and delighted in the little shiver that coursed over her body under his touch, and in watching the goosebumps raise on her flesh in the path of his fingers. He saw a tiny little smile settle across her lips, then heard her sigh gently and murmur something incoherently in her sleep.

He doubted that there was ever a more beautiful woman anywhere in the entire world. She was completely perfect.

She wiggled even closer to him, tightening the grip on his legs with her own, trying to get even closer to him, do away with that pesky empty air between them. Will smiled, and softly dragged his fingernails up her back again and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, hugging her close. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, breathed her uniquely spicy scent, kissed her shoulder.

There was no sound, just the quiet creaking of the ship as it rocked gently along the way. The moment was peaceful and beautiful and serene and wonderful.

He began to doze again in the wonderful peace of this moment, sighing contentedly against her hair and using his free hand to pull her shawl and his cloak up around them for a little bit of extra warmth.

With his head all fuzzy, and being in his own little world and not completely on solid ground, he didn't hear the voices outside their little cupboard, or the footsteps, or—

The door opened suddenly, bashing him soundly in the back.

"Ow!" He moaned, arching away from the door and rubbing the sore spot on the bottom of his back where it had hit him. He turned, awkwardly trying to turn over and look behind him at the intruder while maintaining both his and Djaq's dignity under their makeshift bedding. He covered her with the extra bedding as best as he could, hiding her from view in case it was somebody rather… unsavoury.

When he looked, all he saw were a pair of boots. He followed the legs up and saw a pair of blue eyes and a grinning face looking down at him.

"Allan?"

His friend looked down at him, his eyebrows raised. "What're you doin' in here, mate?" Pause. "Did you _sleep_ in here last night?"

From the complete lack of teasing, he figured that he hadn't seen Djaq there, hidden under their discarded clothing and sleeping peacefully beside him. If Allan saw her, and worked out what they'd done, he'd likely laugh and then tease him about it relentlessly for the rest of his natural life—and probably a good deal beyond. But Will didn't really feel like putting up with him at the moment.

"Go away. I'm tired," he groaned softly, shifting away from the open door and trying to roll over again and go back to sleep.

"You wanna tell me why you're on the floor?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Then—"

"Oh for goodness sake!"

They both looked over to see Djaq, now awake, slowly lifting her head and pulling Will's tunic off of herself.

Now Allan actually looked surprised.

"Do you _mind?"_ She huffed. "We have only just been to sleep!"

The surprise soon vanished from Allan's face, to be replaced with mirth; the corners of his mouth turned up in a broad smile, and then he _laughed._

Will looked over at Djaq, who just shrugged. Neither of them knew what to make of this, so they simply waited nervously for him to quiet down—they sorely hoped that his laughter wouldn't attract the attention of anybody else. How embarrassing would _that_ be?

"Well, well, what's this, then, eh?" He drawled, leaning on the cupboard's doorframe and smiling down at them. Will felt his face and ears heat up with a red blush. _This_ was embarrassing—why didn't he just go away?

"It is called 'sex', Allan," Djaq said calmly, sitting up and covering her chest with a discarded piece of clothing. "You might try it sometime."

"I can honestly say, this is—hey, wait a second!" He interrupted himself to glare at her. "I _do_ do it!"

"I meant with another person."

Will couldn't help it—he laughed. He tried to stifle the noise in his hand, but to do that he had to drop his cloak and it made part of the cloak covering his chest fall down.

"Ooh, you're _cheeky,_ aren't you?" Allan said, eyes narrowed. But he was grinning anyway. "Better you than me, mate," he directed this comment at Will before closing the door and leaving them once again at peace.

And the little cupboard was dark again.

The laughter dispersed and the smile left over slowly began to falter.

"Well…" he began nervously, still staring at the door. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and reflexively tensed a little bit. He knew he shouldn't have been shy or nervous—not after what they did last night—but it was more or less an instinct now.

She pulled herself up close behind him, pressing her bare chest into his back. "Nice of him not to call everybody over to have a look, wasn't it?"

He laughed wetly and turned over again, leaning back and supporting himself on his elbows; she was on her side, holding her upper body up with her left arm. The clothing and cloak and shawl had all fallen off of her, leaving her naked from the waist up. She wasn't shy about her nudity, didn't care that he was staring at her. And stare he did. He studied her carefully, his eyes roaming over her face and her breasts, down her stomach to where her lower body disappeared beneath the folds of his cloak, still resting across her thighs—and, once again, he thought how absolutely beautiful she was.

She was perfect. He had no idea how he was so lucky, what he did to deserve her—maybe he'd done something in a past life for which his reward was this woman. Or maybe she was a reward for the suffering and poverty he'd lived in for most of his life.

Or maybe he was just plain _lucky._ Extremely lucky.

But as she leaned down into him, her free hand looped around the back of his neck, and kissed him—long and deep and sweet and wonderful—he decided that he didn't care _how_ or _why_ this was. Just that it was, and that she loved him—he was deliriously happy with that.

He lay back down again, holding her around her waist and forcing her to come down with him and sit astride his hips. She giggled against his cheek and then began mouthing slow, soft, warm kisses down his neck, her hands smoothing over his shoulders and chest. He purred, enjoying her delicate touches, but when her hands came in contact with his badly scraped-up shoulders and chest, he felt a biting sting and gasped. She quickly moved her hands, instead resting one on his cheek and the other on his arm.

He hugged her flush against him and rolled them over—she squeaked in surprise to find him now hovering over her, and wound her legs tightly around his waist. She was smiling, and so was he; he buried his face in her neck and sighed. She seemed perfectly content to simply lay there together, and in truth he was, as well. He shifted so that he wasn't crushing her, letting her lay on his chest, while she nuzzled the slope between his neck and shoulder and draped her arm around his stomach.

That wonderfully intoxicating peace settled back over them again while he held her snugly to his chest. She curled up against him, her arms and legs tangled with his and her head on his shoulder. Her hair was tickling his chin and his cheek. He revelled in their close contact, softness of her skin, her warm body, her breath on his neck. From this angle, he saw her eyes slowly slide closed as she began to drift off. He repositioned the cloak and shawl and loose clothing on top of them, shielding their bare bodies from the chilly air in here.

If the evidence wasn't right there, quietly dozing on his chest, he might have thought that the events of the previous night were all some sort of incredibly realistic fantasy: wonderful to think of, but simply far too amazing to even fathom being real. But it _had_ happened, and it _was_ true. Scraps of the night played over and over again in his head—the pleading look on her face when she first confronted him in this little cupboard, the way she rolled her head back when he touched her, those pleading whimpers and little mewls of pleasure.

Even the stinging scratch-marks all over his chest and shoulders and back felt strangely good to him, reminding him of what they'd done that made her score him like that with her fingernails. Of course, he'd done something somewhat similar to her. When he reached his own orgasm, he only vaguely remembered where they were; he remembered just enough to know that he had to stay quiet, and instinctively went to clamp his teeth down on the nearest available part to present itself—her shoulder—to muffle the sound that rumbled up in his throat.

He tenderly kissed her shoulder, smoothing his lips over that awful bruised spot where he sunk his teeth, wishing that he could kiss the mark away. The bite was now magnificently colourful, and he sorely regretted doing it.

He felt her slide her hand under his chin and tilt his head up; he looked once into her deep black eyes before she claimed his mouth in another sweet kiss. He decided that he would subsist on her kisses alone if it was at all possible.

Djaq sat up and tilted her head to the side to look at the ball of her shoulder, poking the bruise experimentally. "You _really_ bit me, didn't you?" She observed.

"I _am_ sorry about that, you know," he apologized, gently stroking her bruised shoulder with his thumb.

"It is all right," she said, nuzzling his cheek. "At least _this_ I can hide—_you_ will have a lot of scratches to explain away." She traced her fingers along the scratches on his shoulders. "Unless… unless you want to tell them?"

Even though she'd suggested it, she didn't look terribly thrilled by the prospect of letting even their closest friends know something so personal and private. Well, Allan already knew about it after _walking in on them,_ but he didn't think that he'd actually tell anybody about it. Even _he_ wasn't that crass. At least, he _hoped_ he wouldn't say anything. It was their _own_ business, and he didn't fancy telling anybody. He wanted to keep her and this to himself.

"No," he said firmly. "That's none of their business, is it? And anyway—" here he felt his face heat up. "I think they think that we already _have."_

She nodded as her cheeks tinged pink. "They probably do."

Of course, the chances were fairly slim that the rest of the group didn't already know that something had happened—they weren't _stupid._ After their confession in the barn and their closeness on board the ship and the time they'd spent alone, their friends would have to be collectively dumber than a farmyard chicken not to assume that _something_ had happened. And even if their friends _were_ that oblivious, it would be very hard for the pair to hide their… coupling… from them past this morning.

There was no water for washing and they had no change of clothes, so the only things they had to put on were their rumpled, slept-on clothing and they had no choice but to go through the rest of the day looking and _smelling_ suspiciously like sex. Their clothes were wrinkled, obviously slept _on,_ and their hair was dishevelled and sticking up at amusingly odd angles; the distinctively musky smell of sweat and sex clung to their skin and clothes.

"Look at this," she gasped in surprise when they finally decided that they should get up and began to get dressed. She was standing there naked on top of her pile of clothing, twisted around at the waist to inspect her backside in the partial light in the cupboard.

He was more than happy to oblige, hungrily taking in her beautiful figure and her dark skin. But as he looked at her he saw, once again, just how animalistic and rough he'd been with her last night: her hips and waist, her buttocks, and the tops of her thighs were dotted all over with dark bruises from his fingers where he'd grabbed at her and held her so forcefully.

"I am marked like a spotted horse," she sighed, twisting around the other way to see herself.

Will laughed.

He soon discovered that Djaq was luckier, and that _she_ could cover up all of her telltale marks with her clothes; _he,_ on the other hand, had all of those scratches all over his upper body, and though most of them were out of sight, a few of them were clearly visible above the neckline of his shirt and tunic. Putting his cloak on had helped a bit, but it was still possible to see the tops of the marks peeking out over his clothes.

He took her hand as they left the cupboard, and kept it as they walked out across the ship's deck to meet Robin and the rest of the group for breakfast. Nobody said anything as they walked into the circle together. Much looked up at them in his curiously naïve way; John cast a sideways glance at them but remained silent; Robin didn't even stir, just stared blankly ahead of himself, his expression stonily vacant. Only Allan smiled at them—he shifted his position to make room for them.

From the way he was actually _sitting_ with them, it appeared that their friends had let their once-former comrade back into the group, if only tentatively. He was set slightly apart from them, though, and let Will and Djaq sit between himself and the rest of the gang. They settled down together side-by-side, Djaq sitting close to him and leaning on his shoulder.

Much passed around bowls of weak, watery, tasteless porridge—all that he could scrape up out of the ship's food to feed them with—and they began to eat in silence. Will looked over at Allan, who would normally have been complaining to Much about the lack of food quality, but he was slurping his porridge and making faces and saying nothing.

The silence was gloomy, heavy. Robin barely touched his food, instead just pushing it around the bowl with his spoon. John was only just over his seasickness and ate slowly and cautiously. For the first time, there was a distinct lack of connect between the members of the group; they were all in their own little worlds, cut off from each other and consumed in their own thoughts. It felt so strange.

If anybody thought anything about Djaq and Will's close proximity, their rumpled appearance and wrinkled clothes, their day-dreamy expressions, or their linked hands, they didn't say anything about it.

o…o

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Aren't they sweet together? Djaq and Will are inherently cute. There has to be some scientific or mathematical equation to prove it empirically. Or maybe they just _are._ I hope you enjoyed the read—I like writing those sweet little 'morning after' scenes. If the scenes get any sweeter than this, this story might actually cause cavities upon reading.

Feedback is, as always, greatly appreciated. If you have something to say—good or bad—but you don't want to leave a review on a lemon fic, please feel free to email or PM me if you'd like.


	6. Six

Ahh, this chapter took such a long time to write! I don't know why, I guess it was just one of my slow weeks. It happens sometimes.

Disclaimer: I don't own it!

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o…o

After eating, they settled into what passed for a 'routine' on the ship—Robin adopted his position on the ship's rail near the bow facing Acre, Allan tried to find somebody to play dice with amongst the ship's crew or passengers that he _hadn't_ conned yet, and Much was snubbing him and making 'holier than thou' expressions in his direction whether he could see it or not, and John paced restlessly up and down the deck like a bear in a too-small cage.

Djaq had been asked—conscripted was more like it—to help some of the other passengers with sea-related ailments. Sickness, headaches, dizziness, irritability, stomachaches, and sleeplessness all due to a combination of seasickness and the long and boring sea travel. She spent much of the late morning and well into the afternoon making the rounds. The sun was high in the sky overhead by the time she crawled out of the ship's hold and into the fresh air, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the light. She reached her arms over her head and stretched.

It was a little bit warmer and a bit less cloudy here, but there were still big patches of clouds overhead, blocking out the sun for several minutes at a time before the patches of sunshine would appear again.

Her friends were still occupied as they had been when she left, trying to busy themselves to keep from going crazy. She shook her head—poor boys. There were still _weeks_ to go before they made port in Acre, and it was going to be a long, _long_ trip.

The sails were bulged out with the wind, carrying them quickly over the sea. She took a seat on top of a barrel, resting her feet on a cannon and watching the featureless water pass by. Beyond that there was… nothing. No land, no birds, no other ships. No _nothing._ It felt eerily isolated, knowing that they were this one little wooden ship floating all alone in the vast and empty water, miles and miles away from anything. If something were to happen to them out here, there was no way that anybody would ever know about it.

It was an uncomfortable feeling, for certain.

She shivered, hugging her shawl around herself as she tried to find something else to think about to take her mind off of all of these frightening thoughts. She wrapped the fabric over her arms and her hands and buried her face in it. The shawl smelled like Will, musky and earthy and tinged with the littlest hints of their mixed sweat and the heady smell of sex.

Breathing the scent on her shawl again, she looked around the deck for him. He was sitting nearby, leaning back against the rail and scraping away at a small piece of wood with his whittling knife, occasionally tilting his head back to look at the water passing below, as if he expected the scenery might change. When the sun came out from behind a cloud, his whole face was bathed with the soft light. Every so often he'd turn to look at her and smile that knee-dissolving smile, and she would sigh and swoon and melt into the floor like a teenager with her first crush.

Oh, she was pathetic. Her stomach was doing flips and her heart was fluttering like an excited bird in her chest. All she wanted to do was go over there and snuggle up close to him and get lost again in their own little lovey-dovey world. She was utterly, hopelessly, _ridiculously_ in love with him. In the past, she'd observed this sort of love-struck puppy behaviour before in other people and always rolled her eyes in annoyance at it—she even knew how silly she must have seemed right now, but she didn't even care.

Part of her felt guilty about sharing this new love with him, with Robin so close and with his future with Marian being so uncertain—after all, it was like they were flaunting this carelessly and callously in front of him. Nobody had said anything about her and Will, particularly not Robin, who said precious little these days, but that didn't mean nobody thought it.

Though it was entirely possible that Robin might have been happy for them—had he been himself. Still, she knew it was a good idea to mind themselves around him, lest they upset their friend.

But she couldn't help but swoon over him—he was just too, _too_ beautiful, and it was growing more and more difficult to keep her hands to herself and to keep her mind from wandering into ever more dirty places as she watched him. Every time he tilted his head back, elongating his neck, she felt her heart beat faster. She'd never given much thought to the inherent attractiveness of a man's neck—it seemed a rather strange thing to think of—but watching him look back over the rail again, seeing his long neck exposed again and following those contours all the way down to his collarbones peeking out above his shirt, it was all she could do to keep from going over there and _licking that neck right off of him._

She frowned and blinked curiously at herself. 'Lick that neck off of him'? Where did _that_ come from? That was _weird, _even by her standards.

"Mooning over our carpenter friend, are you?"

She startled, jumping up a few inches in surprise and turning to see who was there. Allan stood next to her, leaning back against a barrel with his arms crossed; a crooked smile sat on his lips and he looked in the same direction she'd been looking, across the deck to where Will was sitting. He then turned to look at her, that lopsided smile turning up at one side.

She smiled, too. "Perhaps—what makes you say that?"

"You couldn't be more obvious if you _tried,"_ he teased.

"There is no reason to hide it, is there?" She asked rhetorically. "Everybody knows how we feel about each other. What is the point in trying to keep it a secret?"

"I guess you've got a point there."

Nod.

He nudged her thigh playfully with his elbow; when she looked at him, he winked. "So why not take him back to your cupboard, then?"

Her face tingled with embarrassment. She knew _exactly_ what he meant by that. "I do not think so."

"Why not?"

"I do not like being quite _that_ obvious!"

"So you'll sigh after him like a puppy, but you won't take it somewhere private for a bit of heavy breathing?"

The blush was creeping up her face, right to her hairline and back to her ears. "It is the middle of the day!" She protested.

"So what? Not like there's anything else to do on this little ship for five weeks. You two're lucky—you've got each other, you know? Somebody to entertain you, keep you from going _mad_ this whole time."

He looked almost forlorn there next to her, looking between Will over there and her sitting on the barrel next to him. She knew—he never told her directly, but Allan a-Dale was an easy person to read, once she knew how, and she knew that he'd once had feelings for her; she suspected that maybe he'd once even been in love with her. How deep or genuine that love was, she wasn't sure.

It was no fault of her own that things had worked out the way they did—she had no control over what her heart wanted, after all.

"I would say that I am sorry," she said softly. "But I have not done anything that I should apologize for."

"I know—hey, look, don't worry about me, all right?" He assured her in that cheerfully flippant tone he adopted whenever he was trying to disguise his true feelings. She wanted to reassure him in some way, but no words came.

"I try. But I cannot help feeling…" she trailed off. What _did_ she feel? Pity—guilt? She had no idea.

Maybe once—a long time ago when she was new to the gang and to Sherwood, and he was one of the only people who liked her—she'd felt a _little_ something for him. Perhaps a private little girlish infatuation with his roguish personality, his devilishly cheeky smile, his too-blue eyes—but that was all superficial. Now she felt nothing of that nature for the man. He was her friend, and she loved him dearly, but as her friend and her friend only.

"'Ey, come on, now, I said don't worry about me. It would never've worked out between us, anyway. I'm fickle, I'm flighty. Even if we _did_ get into something, it wouldn't've lasted. I'd've broken your sweet little Saracen heart."

That perky little tone was still thick in his voice, but Djaq knew that, in some strange way, he believed everything that came out of his own mouth. This was his way of making himself accept the reality and move on. She could think of nothing to help—she was normally so good with words, but they failed her this time.

Perhaps she should take a hint from Allan—convince herself of his attitude. Allan was definitely right about one thing: he was fickle. It wouldn't be long before his heart healed, before he found some other target for his affections. He was a passionate sort, in his own way. He just had to point it in the right direction.

When she realized that she hadn't been saying anything, she quickly tried to come up with some words. "Thank you," was all she said.

Pause.

"So are you gonna go take woodboy to the cupboard or not?"

"_Allan!"_ She pressed her cloth-covered hands to her cheeks in renewed mortification.

"What, is there some sort of unspoken rule about not being allowed to make love in the middle of the day?"

She squeaked, buried her face further into her hands and hoped he might take the hint. It was bad enough that he walked in and saw them this morning. Why did he have to keep bringing it up? Although the idea of going back down into that private little cupboard with him again _was_ appealing…

"Feeling a bit shy, are we?" He teased good-naturedly again.

"Yes, if you must know!"

"What are you saying to her?"

Her head shot up from her hands and she looked up at Will, who had left his spot on the deck nearby to come and stand in front of them. She smiled gently; he leaned forward to kiss her forehead. His shirt hung away from his skin as he leaned towards her, revealing the scrapes on his chest. They were slowly getting better, going from raw red marks to scabbing over as they healed. Next to her, Allan's eyes went wide in surprise as he looked down the shirt, and at her, then back at the shirt again with an amusedly surprised expression—he must not have seen those marks in the morning.

"Oh, nothing—just general conversation," he lied, smiling that cheeky 'I-am-full-of-shit' grin that never fooled anybody, and yet always somehow managed to get him out of trouble.

Will raised his eyebrows at their friend and looked over at her.

She raised herself up a little taller in her seat and pressed her cheek to his, her mouth against his ear. "He keeps suggesting that we go off and make use of the cupboard," she whispered.

The eyebrows went higher. He looked back and forth between them and laughed.

They managed to keep themselves under control all day, instead spending the afternoon with Allan, who seemed glad to have the company. Apparently the last of the crew and passengers had caught onto his little con-game and refused to talk with him anymore, which left him quite lonely. The rest of the group was still collectively wary of their thief friend and what might or might not happen next on their journey, and they had every right to be. But she and Will still trusted him, knew the authentic nature of his apologies and his insistence that his work with Gisbourne and the Sherriff was over for good now.

He was so grateful for the company that he even kept his lewd comments about her and Will's previous 'activities' to himself, even though he must have been absolutely brimming with dirty jokes about it. Out of absolutely _desperate_ boredom, Allan even began teaching her to play dice and they began a three-man game. And then he started to show them how to cheat at dice without getting caught.

It wasn't hard to see what this meant, coming from him—Allan had never been one for seriousness or open displays of sincerity, but showing another person the secrets to his slight-of-hand was his way of proving to the two of them, however indirectly, that he was sorry. It made him somewhat vulnerable, broke down the littlest bit of his walls. It was his way of saying, "I'm sorry for what I did. I trust you enough to show you this, and I hope you can trust me again."

It meant a lot, coming from him, but only because she knew what it meant. Chancing a look to the side at Will, she saw the relaxed look on his face; he'd probably figured it out, as well. He was cleverly intuitive like that.

After a while, she realized that she was actually starting to have some _fun._ Forgotten were the feelings of boredom and fear that came with being on board the ship, and the worry she felt about the newest step in her and Will's budding love. Gone, too, were the feelings of betrayal and uncertainty that had plagued them about their friend for his recent disloyalty, the wariness and the uneasy reservations.

Even Will smiled as they sat together. He, too had forgiven Allan, if only temporarily, for his crime, and _he_ was almost the most entitled to hate him forever for it. Djaq knew that he had thought of Allan as his brother, loved him as such in the absence of his own brother. That betrayal had hurt him more, cut him deeper, than it had any of them. To see the two of them now, sitting together and playing dice, grinning and talking, sharing quiet jokes and laughing together once again—it almost felt like a family reunion.

The warm, fuzzy feeling in her chest almost surprised her. It was comfortable and familiar, warm, safe… content. She knew that feeling—she used to associate it with the quiet evenings the group spent together after a long day, full bellies and contented minds, sleepy and warm and comfortable and happy. She hadn't even noticed that she hadn't felt that way until just now, when it came back and settled over her again.

Closeness. Familiarity.

Love.

This was their _family,_ after all.

"I can't believe you two!"

The sound of Much's distinctly disgusted voice broke her thoughts. He was standing nearby with his arms crossed firmly and that uniquely Much-like condescending frown on his face. That expression that said, "I am on higher moral ground than you for reasons that I shall bring up, reliably, every two minutes until one of us is dead."

She always rather hated that expression, but made herself feel better about it by making him look like an idiot later. It wasn't hard to do.

They all looked up at him from their dice game in the little circle on the floor.

"What can't you believe?" Will asked casually.

Much huffed as only he could. "That you'd just sit here with him like everything's the same as it's always been, like nothing happened! Playing dice with him and letting him con you like that…" he looked at the dice cup like it was some sort of malevolent being.

"Actually, mate, Djaq's winning at the moment—"

"I am _not_ your mate!" The manservant spat, his eyes narrowed and his face turning red with anger. An explosion like that wasn't entirely unexpected from Much, who could be a bit of a histrionic, but it was still a little surprising. He hadn't been showing a great deal of outright hostility to Allan, instead preferring to show his distaste by lording the moral high ground over him.

"Hey, I'm sorry!" He said quickly, adopting a defensive position, sitting back with his hands up and his eyes wide. "I didn't mean to offend."

"You exist—that is offensive enough without you _opening your mouth!"_

"Much—" Will began.

"Don't you start trying to defend him!" He cut him off. "Just because _you're_ so willing to just pardon the _lying traitor_ doesn't mean that the rest of us are so willing to forgive and forget that easily! Not all of us are inherently _trusting_ like you are!"

Djaq scowled deeply. She tried to hold her tongue—after all, it was best that Allan's past hurts and betrayals were off of their minds _now_ rather than later, while they were trying to find the King and complete their mission in Acre—but she couldn't stand to listen to him spewing venom about him like that.

"Stop that," she told him sternly as she stood to face him, staring him down. "Just because _you_ are still angry does not mean that all of us have to feel the same way that you do. Or does that rule not apply in the other direction?"

Another uniquely Much-like look came over his face, looking both confused and timidly scolded, his cheeks and ears turning red, his mouth opening and closing like a fish's—an expression he wore only when he couldn't believe that somebody had just challenged him. But at least he was _quiet,_ and not yelling about Allan.

She glanced over at her friend, sitting on the deck beside her; he was looking up at her piteously, his relief and gratitude to her written clearly in his face and those big blue eyes. When she smiled, he mouthed the words 'thank you' to her.

"How long is this going to go on?" She continued. "What happens when we get to Acre, or when we go back to Sherwood, and we have to operate as a team? When our success _depends_ on all of us working together, we cannot afford to keep these animosities."

"It also depends on trust," Much growled. "And I, for one, cannot be on a _team_ with somebody that I don't trust!"

Sigh.

"You're acting like a bratty child," Will growled. When he stood up to face him, he towered almost a full head and neck overhead. Much balked. "If you're still this angry, you could do what John's doing and just _ignore_ him, couldn't you?"

The muscles in the older man's jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth, his fists balled down at his sides, and his eyes narrowing in anger. Clearly, he'd expected support for his anger towards Allan, not for them to jump to their friend's defense. For a split second, he looked like he wanted to say something about it, to argue some more, but his expression swiftly changed into one of concern.

"Good lord," he remarked, abruptly adopting a tone of worry. "What happened to _you?"_

"Huh?" He frowned.

"You're all scraped up!"

When she looked at him and saw the criss-crossed red marks peeking up over Will's shirt and tunic, Djaq felt the blood drain from her face. He'd seen the scratches! Oh, no—she _really_ didn't feel like explaining herself right now, and even _Much _would be able to figure out where those marks had come from. He was dense but he wasn't completely stupid. The pair of them hadn't come to stay with the rest of the gang last night in their huddled sleeping group, and would probably have been noticed missing. That coupled with their curiously bedraggled appearance at breakfast and the scratches underneath the young carpenter's clothes clearly spelled out only possible conclusion.

Her whole face began to tingle and heat, that familiar feeling of uncomfortable embarrassment creeping up and fizzling into her cheeks.

"Hey, stop that!" She heard Will protest.

Much was trying to have a better look at his injuries, getting awfully nosy and trying to look down his front. Will stepped back sharply and batted his hands away.

"Have you seen this, Djaq?" He asked, sounding almost _innocent_ in the way it clearly hadn't occurred to him where those scratches may have come from.

Unexpected laughter rumbled up in her belly, unbidden, and a short laugh burst from her lips briefly before she stifled it and pretended that it was a cough. To her right, Allan was artfully hiding his own laughter behind his hand and his shirt sleeve; on her other side, her lover was starting to turn a shockingly bright shade of pink while he tried to pull his shirt and cloak around to cover the marred flesh. The poor boy was probably absolutely _mortified._

She wasn't thrilled about it, either, but she was starting to think she'd overestimated Much's ability to fit two pieces of a puzzle together.

"It's nothing—" Will began to protest.

"But you're a _mess!"_

Allan stepped in, trying to help save his friends some embarrassment. "Hey, come on, mate—Much!" He corrected himself quickly before he continued. "I'm sure he's fine."

Much ignored him. "Would you _please_ come and look at this?" He asked her.

"But I feel fine…" he said sheepishly.

She took a deep breath and tried her best to look and sound nonchalant. "If they are just scratches, I do not see any reason to make a fuss over them," she said with a shrug. "Nobody has ever _died_ from a few scratches. He probably did them to himself in his sleep." Oh, this was _embarrassing…_

The man eyed them both suspiciously, turning his gaze back and forth between them through narrowed eyelids. Djaq didn't like that sort of scrutiny and fidgeted nervously where she stood.

"If you say so, I suppose. You're the doctor…" he trailed off, shrugged, and left the three of them again at peace.

o…o

0…0…0…0…0

Oh, goodness. Poor, innocent, _clueless_ Much has no idea what's been going on. For all his 'euphemism' talk, he strikes me as startlingly innocent and a bit naïve.

Hm, a decidedly un-fluffy chapter. I had planned to make it a little longer than this and get into a bit more—ahem—spiciness, but that would have made the chapter get a bit out of control. So I cut it off here, in favour of writing another chapter of pure smuff. You'll see it next week—I hope it doesn't disappoint!

Until then, please read and enjoy. Any kind of feedback is, as always, greatly appreciated.


	7. Seven

Chapter Seven! So much for a one-shot. On the one hand, it makes for something to keep you _and_ me entertained for a few weeks—on the other, it means I have absolutely no control over my story length. Just as another warning, this chapter contains another sex scene—again, it's a little bit on the graphic side. Not enough to drain the blood out of your face, but you might want to mind where you read it, lest somebody read over your shoulder and question you.

Once again, thanks to MissWed for proofreading parts of this story.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. I'm just making them do really dirty things.

0…0…0…0…0

o…o

The difference in temperature between the daylight hours and night time was uncomfortably noticeable. As soon as the sun began to set, the air chilled and it became uncomfortably cold out on the deck. It was only the _tiniest_ bit warmer down below in the hold, but it was hardly compensatory. It was worse than spending those long, cold winter nights exposed to the elements in the damp and dead and frozen forest—at least there they could light a fire, sleep close to the embers to keep warm, and wrap themselves in furs and as many woolly blankets as they could find. But there was also always something oddly cozy about being cocooned in heavy pelts and blankets, curled up comfortably warm under all that weight in the icy dead of night.

But there was no way to light a fire on board this ship; it was dangerous enough to light those little tiny lanterns. Ships were nothing but floating tinder boxes, and it wouldn't take a terribly big errant spark or flame to catch the pitch-coated wood, the dry rope, or the canvas sails and make the whole vessel go up in flames. They didn't even have any spare clothes and there were few blankets to keep them warm.

The air in the hold was starting to get heavy and dank, from so many people sitting about and huddled down in the hold without enough portholes to let out the stale air and the stink of too many people in too small a space. That was the one advantage of the forest: there was never that uncomfortably close feeling that they would have gotten if they were cooped up all winter inside a cottage or if they lived in a castle. Here they had no such luxury of fresh air.

Cold and humid, dark and smelly and creaky.

It was absolutely miserable.

Or, it _would_ have been, except that the need for extra warmth gave Djaq an excellent excuse to snuggle up nice and warm and comfy and close to Will. And she took full advantage of this. She sat bracketed between his legs, leaning back against his chest with his cloak snugly wrapped around the two of them, and it was quite cozy. He leaned down, pressed his lips to her hair, kissed the top of her head; she sighed quietly, hugging his arms tighter around her chest and her shoulders. They were sitting away from the rest of the group—just far enough to keep their affectionate display out of their full view, but close enough not to feel cut off from them.

Much and Robin sat nearby, facing one another and having a private conversation, talking in gentle, hushed tones with a small lantern between them casting the smallest pool of light. John was already asleep, sprawled out under a blanket and snoring away like a sleeping bear. Allan, the closest person to them, was curled up a few feet away, dozing and slipping in and out of consciousness. Elsewhere in the hold, the rest of the ship's passengers and the crew members who weren't working were also sleeping. They were sleeping a lot on this trip; that was the best way to pass the time, to settle down and lose the boredom in a few hours of sleep.

For now she was happy to sit here with Will. She could fall asleep like this and stay here all night.

Despite Allan's gentle, prodding teases about going back to 'their cupboard', as he was calling it, they kept themselves under control for the duration of the day. Though she was beginning to wonder why they were even bothering. After all, their friend was right about one thing—there was hardly anything else to do during the day, or the night for that matter. It would be time very well spent, wouldn't it?

A tingling excitement flared in her belly at the thought and at the memory of last night. She was fairly sure that nobody else was going to use the cupboard, and that it wouldn't be too hard to discreetly slip back there for the night and make love again. The idea sounded more and more appealing as the moments passed lazily by. And why not? After all, it was only natural—she loved him and wanted to be as close to him as possible.

With his arms wrapped around her from behind, his hands were chastely resting on her shoulders—oh, how she wanted him to move them, to put those wonderfully coarse hands somewhere rather less innocent.

Her hands were hanging down on either side of his legs, and she casually brought them up and grazed the undersides of his thighs with her fingernails. His whole body tensed in response, his grip on her shoulders tightening until his fingers and his nails dug into the flesh of her shoulders. The corners of her mouth twitched upwards, grinning, and she did it again, a little harder this time. This time, he responded by lowering his head to the curve of her neck and shoulder and roughly kissing her.

She tilted her head back and to the side to give him access to her neck, and he began enthusiastically mouthing kisses on the delicate skin there.

As he continued kissing her, laying increasingly light and ticklish kisses on her exposed neck, she wriggled against him. The more she squirmed, the tighter he held her, closing his arms and his legs around her until she was effectively trapped in his hold.

His kisses became lighter, tickling her neck and making her squirm helplessly; her arms were pinned to her sides, making it impossible for her to get away or to touch him. Of course, if she'd really _wanted_ to, she could have freed herself from his grip by force, but she was really quite enjoying herself.

One of his hands began to roam as his other arm kept her immobile. He dragged his fingers up her front, pulling her shirt up as he went and exposing her stomach. She had to bit her lower lip to keep from squealing as he tickled her. She jerked her arms, tugging to try to free herself, to no avail. She just wanted to _touch_ him.

The roaming hand yanked the shirt up higher, over her chest and exposing her breasts to his hand. Her breath caught in her throat as he gently touched her, gently fondling one breast and then the other. A small whimper escaped her as he ran a thumb over her nipple.

Then he stopped.

She growled.

"Flustered?" He breathed hotly in her ear.

"You are cruel," she whined.

"Hmm, really?"

Before she could answer, he'd leaned forward and nipped her earlobe, making her yelp softly. He squeezed her breast and all power of speech left her.

Djaq knew she'd created a monster. Before last night he'd _never_ have done anything like this, never touched her in such an overtly sexual way or been in any way aggressive at all. She knew that sleeping with him would change the dynamic between them forever—she was perfectly willing to accept that—and she knew it was going to change the way they acted around one another as well. But she definitely hadn't expected that Will would have turned quite suddenly from the sweet, boyishly shy, _innocent_ young carpenter into this wickedly aggressive sort. One encounter seemed to have awakened something in him, something that even _he_ probably didn't know he had in him. If nothing else, she thought a change like this might have occurred slowly over a long period of time.

It was a radical change, certainly, but it was a _good_ change. She could most definitely enjoy this new side of him.

He was busy on her neck again, mouthing and biting and sucking on the gentle skin while his hand continued to move over her breast, making her groan and dissolve into his hold. When he pinched her nipple just a bit, and she scratched wildly at the arm around her and flailed in his grip. She managed to turn herself around and free her arms, and then pushed him backwards on the floor in a fluttering tangle of cloak and shawl. She planted her hands on his shoulders and held him flat on the floor, hovering over him and breathing heavily.

She couldn't help but giggle quietly at the sweetly surprised look on his face. Then the surprise melted and became a wide smile; she leaned down and kissed his dimpled cheek, then his mouth, caressing his lips and feeling him smile against her mouth. He was laughing silently as she kissed down his throat to the little exposed part of his chest, mouthing long, sweet, gentle kisses down the red marks on his chest. He was struggling under her as she held him down by his shoulders.

She freed his shoulders in order to move a little further down until she could reach to pull at the bottoms of his tunic and shirt, tugging them up and exposing his skin to the cool air. She ghosted her fingernails over his flesh, making him come out in goosebumps in their wake. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back up to him, nuzzling her still-bare chest—she forgot where they were and gasped loudly as she felt his lips on her breast.

She was suddenly reminded of their proximity to the others with a hand over her mouth; her eyes went wide as she heard Allan stir nearby. She fixed her shirt again so she was decent, and sat up so that she could see—they'd woken him.

"Whuh?" He groaned softly, half-sitting up in his cloak and blanket. "Whut's goinnon?" He slurred.

"Nothing," she said in a desperate bid to save themselves even _more_ embarrassment today. "You are dreaming—to back to sleep."

He was looking right at them but she wasn't sure he could actually figure out what he was staring at.

"All right."

_Thunk._

With that, he'd fallen back down again and gone right back to sleep.

"That was close," she whispered as he sat up underneath her.

"_Really_ close," he said in hushed tones.

Pause.

"Cupboard?"

The word was a question, and she knew what it meant.

She nodded swiftly. "Cupboard."

They both stood quickly, stumbling over loose clothing and Djaq's shawl as they skittered, giggly and smiling and clutching each other's hands like a pair of giddily lovestruck teenagers, across the hold towards the back where their little 'room' was waiting. The excitement boiling over in her stomach was almost unbearable as they picked their way, as quickly and as quietly as they could manage, through the sleeping bodies in the hold to the cupboard. Will leaned down to snatch up an unused blanket as they went.

The door was barely closed before they began roughly pulling one another's clothes off, grabbing shirt hems and cloak ties and trying to disrobe without relinquishing their physical contact. Her shirt was quickly discarded and Will's cloak was on the floor—she pulled him closer and wound her arms around his neck. She kissed his neck, searing little pecks down his throat and his collarbone, and pressing herself against him as thoroughly as possible. His rough, scratchy tunic was on her bare breasts—there was something strangely arousing about that—and his hands were on her hips trying to drag her trousers down without first untying the laces.

She grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and tunic from behind, pulling them up to his neck and exposing his torso a little bit at a time. His bare stomach was pressed against hers, and she purred softly against his lips at that marvellous feeling of skin on bare skin. With his tunic bunched in her hands, she started trying to pull it over his head—again, trying not to give up their contact, and finding it very difficult to do so.

He was laughing softly into her neck as she struggled with the garment, and her heart melted; she enjoyed hearing that sound more than any other. She finally wrenched his tunic up over his head and tossed it to the side, but forgot about the shirt he wore under it and voiced a dismayed whimper when she realized he was still wearing it.

"You sound like you're having a bit of trouble," he murmured.

"I _am!"_ She huffed in response. "You wear _far too much_ clothing!"

Again, he laughed, highly amused by this—her stomach fluttered; how she loved hearing him laugh!—and stepped away from her just long enough to pull his shirt off for her to save her any further trouble. It was quickly dropped on the floor and forgotten about as she jumped on him again, his bare chest pressed against hers and sending those jolts of white-hot excitement through her whole body.

They kissed feverishly again as he began to slowly walk into her, pushing her further and further into the cupboard. She clumsily kicked her boots off as she went, trying not to fall over them or let him trip, either, and he forced her to back up until she came in contact with a crate—the force of the impact made her knees buckle and she sat hard on the wooden surface, coming down with a jolt.

"Ow!" She yelped, wincing and rubbing her suddenly sore tailbone.

He crouched low to be at eye-level with her; he looked concerned around the lusty glazed look in his eyes. "You all right?" He asked.

"Fine."

"Good."

He rose a little higher and came forward quickly until he collided with her mouth again, kissing her hotly, kneading her lips with his and making her shiver with anticipation against him. He clasped her around the waist with his broad hands, gently sliding them up her sides, delicately tickling her. His touch made her absolutely giddy—she clasped him around the neck again and threaded her fingers into his hair.

He whispered her name, warm and gentle against her lips, hovering just over her mouth. His voice was soft and sweet and tender, the sound of her own name making her heart thump wildly in her chest.

His hand rested on the side of her face, tracing her cheek with his thumb. She loosened her grip on the back of his hair in favour of bringing her own hand up to cover his. She could feel him trembling ever so shallowly as she did so, and she closed the minute distance between them to kiss him again. He relaxed into her, lips melding and tongues tangling. She cheekily nipped his tongue; he responded by growling and biting her lower lip. When he withdrew again, he was smiling.

"I love you," he whispered.

"_Uhibbuka,"_ the word rolled silkily off of her tongue; it was strange and familiar all at the same time. There were times when she found the words in her native language to be much better at conveying certain ideas or feelings than those in the startlingly limited English tongue. It meant the same thing, but she said it anyway.

He frowned. "What does…?"

"It means 'I love you'," she murmured.

His mouth turned up at the corners and he gently pressed his smile against hers. _"Uhi—bbuka,"_ he repeated the word in slowly and haltingly. He had no idea what he was saying, but a tiny little burst of laughter came from her lips.

He frowned.

"I am sorry," she apologized quickly, trying to think of a way to explain this to him. "It is… the wrong word."

"But you said—"

"The word changes when addressing a man or a woman," she explained.

"Oh."

Pause.

"Why's that?" He asked.

She kissed his cheek. "I shall teach you properly another time—it will be our secret language," she promised. The thought of sharing steamy private words with him in her poetic native Arabic while the others remained none the wiser of their conversation sounded quite appealing.

"Then what do I say to you?"

"It is _'uhibbuki',"_ she told him.

"_Uhibbuki,"_ he repeated. His eyes slid closed as the word came slowly and sounding so very alien coming from his mouth; and yet she went all fluttery and excited, hearing that one little word in her native tongue in his voice. His lips were swollen and bruised from their kisses and she couldn't resist pulling him back to her and sinking into heated kisses once again.

He shifted and flattened his other hand on her stomach, sliding it slowly up between her breasts and stopping to trace his fingernails over her collarbones and making her squirm under his touch.

She shivered happily and hummed quietly, contentedly, to herself as he tenderly cupped one breast and with the other ghosted his fingernails down her stomach.

His kisses and his touch and the tickling and his warmth all sent hot jolts all the way through her body, making her tingle all over and made the heat between her thighs grow noticeably more intense. She grasped wantonly at his shoulders, forgetting about the scratches she'd left last night and scoring his back and shoulders with her nails again. A long, low groan rumbled up in her throat when he squeezed her breast.

He tore his lips away from hers in favour of mouthing deep, wet, open-mouthed kisses down her throat and the top of her chest, smoothing his hands down her torso and following them with his mouth. He flicked his tongue over first one nipple, and then the other, and she yelped. She felt him laugh silently against her skin and come back up to kiss her cheek.

"Shh," he purred around shallow laughs.

"I can hardly help it," she said, crossing her arms over her bare chest and sticking out her lower lip in a mock-pout. "First you tease me, and then I am not allowed to say anything about it."

He pecked her lips again. "Just try."

He pulled her arms down—she didn't resist—and went back to her naked torso to continue tormenting her. She bit her lip while he lipped and gently bit down her chest and stomach, soothing away the little nips with sweet little kisses. She sat back, leaning back on her hands and letting him do as he liked with his hands and his mouth on her bare skin.

When he reached the waistband of her trousers, he began to tug at the laces with his teeth, trying to untie them. This slowed the process considerably, but she found herself rather enjoying the anticipation as he pulled on the leather cords. The excitement flared in her belly, warm and tingling.

Just when she was starting to get impatient, she felt the laces give and he began to tug her pants and underwear down all at once, inching the garments down over her backside. She lifted herself up on her hands so that he could pull her clothes out from under her before continuing to _slowly_ pull them further down. His slow pace was driving her mad, but she let him have the upper hand this time and let him do whatever he wanted.

He pulled her slightly forward, pulling her closer to his mouth and kissing her stomach just below her navel. He bit down softly and sucked on her skin, leaving a little red mark. She held her breath and waited, hoping and wishing that he might go further and knowing that it probably would never occur to him to do that.

Will slipped the trousers down her thighs and her legs and _finally_ discarded them, leaving her bare before him once again. He rose a little higher and took a moment to just look at her, an awed look on his face as his eyes passed over her body. He said nothing—words would have spoiled the moment—and leaned down over her to kiss her again, long and warm and so sweet she nearly went completely boneless sitting there.

By now she was practically laying down on the hard wooden crate, leaning back a little bit at a time in hopes of getting him even closer to her. He followed to maintain contact, pressing his chest and stomach to hers and blindly exploring her newly exposed lower body with his hands as he hovered over her.

After sliding down her stomach again and coming to rest between her legs, his hand found her again and cupped her sex, work-worn fingers dragging through her slick heat and making her tremble shallowly, her breath released slowly in a rumbling, moaning sigh. Her eyes fluttered closed as she let herself become completely consumed by his touch. His deliciously rough and calloused fingers were softly caressing her, stroking, making her whole body burn and tremble. She breathed quickly and panted shallowly as his movements sped up; she grasped him tightly around his neck while he kissed her all over her neck and chest and shoulders. When he nipped her neck and ground his palm against her, she cried out softly and bucked her hips. Lost in the moment, she didn't care that she'd been loud, and apparently neither did he. He seemed like he was too caught up in this, in pleasing her, to care about anything else.

It was like he knew exactly what she liked, as if they had been lovers for years and knew one another intimately; she knew he'd never been with another woman before, so he shouldn't have been nearly as good at this as he was proving to be. She'd thought—indeed, _expected_—that there would be a period of awkward adjustment as they got used to one another's bodies and likes and dislikes. He either had a substantial natural talent, or was making a lot of very lucky guesses. Or maybe there were a few useful crossovers between carpentry and sex.

Whatever the reason, he was absolutely _wonderful._

She arched into him, breathing heavily and burbling wordlessly, pleading as he brought her closer and closer to heaven. The warmth in the pit of her stomach grew and heated and—

He stopped.

She pushed herself up on her elbows and sat up in order to glare angrily at him. He wore a lopsided little grin, his face intense as he stared right back at her. She couldn't begin to guess what was going through his mind—his gaze was so passionate, his eyes crinkled the littlest bit at the corners in silent mirth.

The scolding and question were on the tip of her tongue, but it was all completely forgotten when he pulled her forward one last time, bringing her right to the edge of the crate and level with his mouth. Foggily, through the hazy half-thoughts in her head, she knew she should have been worried about her naked backside being dragged across the wooden surface of the box—it certainly had the potential to result in some embarrassingly difficult to explain splinters—but she couldn't find it in herself to care at the moment. And when he dove between her thighs and delved his tongue into her warm folds, she swiftly forgot how to speak.

She drew a ragged breath and clawed her fingers through his dark hair while he wantonly devoured her. His tongue lolled over her again and again and again, making her melt into him. She trilled, digging her blunt fingernails into his back and shoulders as he knelt before her. Waves of pleasure coursed through her whole body, making her tingle all over and shiver uncontrollably; a tiny little bead of sweat rolled from her neck and down her back, raising goosebumps in its path.

The warmth of their contact spread through her body, the small bubble expanding in the pit of her stomach and filling her to her toes.

"_Will…"_

She moaned his name when she came out in convulsing tremors as she reached her release under his mouth. Blood rushed up through her face, her breath caught in her lungs, her heart pounded so hard in her chest that it almost felt like it wanted to escape.

He must have been talking to Allan again—or else Allan was offering him unsolicited advice. Never in a million years did she expect that he would have tried something like this. It hardly seemed compatible with the image of innocent young Will Scarlett, who until last night had been the very definition of a blushing virgin. Something told her that he'd been concocting this elaborate fantasy in his head and was taking advantage of their half-private cupboard to act out everything—absolutely _everything—_he'd imagined doing with her, while they still had the opportunity.

Not that she objected to it, at all—it was hardly unenjoyable.

When she finally came back down to earth, he was still kneeling before her, with his head resting in her lap and his arms were clasped around her hips. When she looked down at him, he pressed a gentle kiss to her stomach and then smiled up at her. His lips were shining with her wetness and his hair stood out at odd angles from her running her hands through it and badly mussing it. Once again, he looked quite pleased with himself at what he'd done to her. She had a feeling she'd always find it funny, but she couldn't laugh. He kissed her again, leaving damp lip-marks just below her navel.

She was still purring quietly low in her throat and her muscles were still twitching pleasurably. He stayed where he was, still clutching her tightly and occasionally laying kisses on her belly and her thighs as he held her. Her trembling subsided, finally, and she bent low, tilting his chin up and kissing him, slow and deep; it was the strangest thing, tasting _herself_ on him as she moved her mouth over his.

Without breaking contact, he stood and lifted her up off of her perch and hefted her in his arms. She grasped at his shoulders and wound her legs around his waist to steady herself. His pants were gone—when had he taken those off?—and she could feel him hard and ready against her thigh.

He repositioned them both and softly lay her back down on the floor on the pile of their discarded clothing, slowly and gently, still smothering her with kisses as he went. But as he settled down, he stopped quite suddenly; she kept her legs wrapped tightly around his hips, an awkward position to be in as he hovered over her, supporting himself on his elbows to keep a little space between them, but she didn't want to lose that contact between them. Djaq's brows knit in concern, not sure of what he was doing—until she saw that familiar look of uncertainty in her lover's face. He probably wasn't entirely sure what to do now that _he_ had the dominant role. After all, the last time _she_ had been the one to take charge.

"Djaq," he rasped against her cheek, his face turning pink as he closed his eyes and buried his face in the crook of her neck. He sounded like he'd wanted to continue that thought and say something else, but he kept quiet, breathing into her neck and remaining motionless above her.

"Keep going," she breathed, almost pleading. She arched into his chest and clutched his shoulders to encourage him to keep going.

He was still slowly hesitant as he unfastened her legs from around himself, having her lay flat under him, and lowered his hips to hers. Unsure of himself, he moved over her, halting and clumsy—he couldn't quite manage their completion, going flustered and blushing furiously. His movements became erratic and he began to tremble slightly, and he started to sound frustrated as he whimpered into her shoulder.

She reached down between them and took him in her hand again; Will sharply drew a breath and froze. His face was bright red with embarrassment, and he looked apologetic and tried to explain himself, but all that came out was a garbled mess of words. He was so sweetly uncertain of this, despite the forwardness with which he'd touched her—he was still so very inexperienced, and she was reminded of this with his sudden onslaught of nerves.

"It is all right," she assured him quietly. Her free hand came up to his cheek and she pulled him down to kiss him again.

She guided him into the slick warmth between her legs, her hand steady and firm; when they finally met, she shuddered and drove her hips up to meet his. She braced herself for this, but there was much less discomfort and very little pain this time at their union, far better than their first awkwardly uncomfortable time.

He drove into her as she rose to meet him again. He caught on to their rhythm quicker this time, and his confidence returned. He began kissing her slowly and roughly once he'd grown used to it, tracing patterns on her chest and stomach, flicking his fingers over her breasts and adding to her pleasure.

She grasped him around his waist with her legs again as he ground his pelvis into hers—his breath was hot on her skin, his face buried in the crook of her neck. She sighed happily, winding her arms around his neck and sinking into their warmth. She could feel his heart pounding in his chest against her own; his muscles tensed and then relaxed again with every thrust. The low growls rumbling up in his throat were music to her ears.

His breathing soon grew heavy and uneven, his body beginning to tremble. He gripped around her waist with both hands; he groaned softly into her shoulder and shuddered against her. He released his remaining breath as a long moan, driving into her one last time and then stopping. He fell into her, comfortably squashing her under his weight.

She stroked his damp hair, smiling to herself as he lay there on top of her, panting heavily while he slowly settled down. His grip on her waist relaxed and he stroked her sides with gentle hands. He kissed her neck and cheeks and lips in-between his heaving breaths, murmuring wordlessly against her skin as he did so.

Eventually, he came back down from his release and pulled out of her—she whimpered a little at the loss of his body. She grabbed her shawl to cover them while he lazily reached behind them and pulled the mess of clothes and blankets over them to shield their sweaty bodies from the cool night air.

"Love you," she whispered against his temple.

He hitched the blankets up around their shoulders. "I love you, too," he breathed. He held her back against his chest, warm and protective in his arms, and nuzzled her cheek. _"Uhibbuki_—I love you…"

He kept whispering the same things over and over again until his voice trailed off and he drifted off to sleep. Djaq sighed, listening to his words and letting sleep overtake her, as well.

They slept again in the cupboard that night, cuddled up close together with their bodies entwined in a tangle of clothes and makeshift blankets.

The next morning, nobody came to look for them and they slept late into the day together, content and undisturbed—and by the following night the little dark cupboard had become recognized as Will and Djaq's bedroom.

o…o

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These chapters are getting a bit long, aren't they? I thought these were going to be shorter chapters than in HF, but they're starting to get into the 4,000 plus range now. I have absolutely no self-control! Oh well, at least it gives you something to read. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated should you feel so inclined to leave it.


	8. Eight

_Eight chapters!_ From here, it's really hard to believe that this story started off as a one-shot. I hope you're all enjoying the read so far. I have to say, it's been interesting. I don't normally write lemons, so writing something like this is a bit of a change for me.

Disclaimer: The BBC owns this version of Robin Hood and the characters therein.

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o…o

They took to sleeping every night in the cupboard after that—sleeping with the rest of the group didn't seem quite right when they wanted to be so close to one another, sometimes wanting to make love and sometimes just snuggling up close together. So they decided it was better to sleep in the cupboard, where they could revel in as much contact as they liked in the relative privacy. And for several days, they slept there on the floor, cocooned themselves in their one blanket and Will's cloak and her shawl and hugging each other for warmth.

They were used to sleeping on the ground, but the ground in the forest was much softer than the hard wooden boards of the floor on the ship. Some nights it was hard to find a good place to sleep on the painfully hard floor, and they were constantly shifting as they hovered between sleep and wakefulness in order to try to find a more comfortable sleeping position. It was easier to fall asleep after they were tired from sex, but on the nights they didn't, they became acutely aware at how awkward sleeping on the floor was going to be.

After a few nights of this, Will approached her one afternoon and said that he had something to show her, and began ushering her down into the hold towards their cupboard.

"In the middle of the day?" She'd teased him then. "Goodness, I think that I have created a monster…"

He'd laughed softly and kissed the top of her head, but didn't say anything else as he placed a gentle broad hand on the small of her back and led her forward.

He stood behind her while she looked back at him, suspiciously questioning, before he pushed the door to the cupboard open. When she peeked in, she discovered that he'd somehow tracked down one of the big canvas hammocks that some of the crew and passengers were sleeping in and hung it up across their cupboard, providing a bed off of the hard floor. The two crates had been moved, as well, flanking either side of the hammock to act as step-stools, and a blanket was draped over the hammock.

She had smiled then at his thoughtfulness. Was there _anything_ he wouldn't do?

"I'm getting tired of sleeping on the floor, and I thought you must have been as well," he said as a way of trying to dismiss his action as nothing of particular importance or consideration.

She'd turned around then, stood on her toes, and kissed him quickly on the lips.

Learning to sleep together in the hammock took several nights of trial-and-error. They couldn't have sex in the hammock—there was no way to move around in it without risking dumping each other out of the canvas sling and onto the floor. They could only sleep in it _after_ they were finished, or if they didn't make love at all that night.

Even after they were in place together in the hammock and ready to sleep for the night, it still required some strategic manoeuvring and a bit of getting used to. Any movement at all caused the whole thing to rock back and forth, and there was always that very real risk that they might upturn themselves and land on the floor and hurt themselves, so they had to adopt one position and _stay there_ all night. But even so, it was far better than sleeping on the floor, and once they were used to it, it was much easier and by far more comfortable to sleep this way.

And so the days wore on, melting into weeks as they made their journey across the seas to the port city at Acre. Their days were mostly spent together, practically attached at the hip. But there wasn't really a great deal to keep them occupied on the ship, other than each other's company. Or Allan's. They were still the only two people who had forgiven him, who didn't hate him, and they were as glad for his company as he was for theirs. It was almost like old times, the way the three of them talked and laughed amongst themselves, like the banter they once passed back and forth across the cooking fire in their camp.

Other than that, though, there wasn't much going on.

John had pretty much gone into what could best be described as a state of hibernation—he slept for about twenty hours a day, waking for only an hour or so at a time, just long enough to eat a small meal and take a short walk around the ship and then going right back to sleep again. Djaq knew that frequent and excessive sleeping was a common occurrence in people who were cramped in an unusually small space for a long period of time, especially when they weren't used to it. As long as he was eating and drinking to nourish himself, she'd said, he would be fine.

Robin was still very much in his own little world, adopting his usual position up near he ship's helm or sitting on the bow, watching the flat green-gray water before them with a penetrating, stony expression. It was as if he thought that if he stared ahead hard enough, he would be able to see across the hundreds of miles of sea before them. That he would somehow be closer to his Marian. He responded to nothing, not conversation or comfort or company, and had to be reminded sternly to remember to eat something.

Much spent _his_ days alternately trying to initiate conversation with a markedly unresponsive Robin, sulking about the ship, and loudly voicing his fears and apprehensions about returning to the Holy Land and what might await them there. Nobody told him, but whenever he began to talk about the imminent troubles in Acre, they noticed a subtle change in Robin's expression or position—he would sometimes cast a secret sideways look at his former manservant, as if silently telling him to shut up and stop filling his already troubled mind with even _more_ frightening possibilities for the future.

Allan bounced back and forth between Will and Djaq, and the members of the crew and the other passengers who would talk to him. Allan was never comfortable with silence or a lack of conversation. He always had to be _doing_ something or _talking_ to somebody. He couldn't just entertain himself, so the voyage was going to be extremely difficult on him. Moreso than it was for the rest of them, especially when there were so few people willing to associate with him.

Life on board the ship was, in short, astoundingly dull.

But their friend _had_ been right about one thing: at least she and Will had each other.

Two days previous, Robin came out of his shell and called the rest of the group to a meeting to discuss their plans once reaching Acre. They sat in a sort of lopsided circle together, not unlike when they used to gather for meals or discussing plans when they were in the forest. The difference this time was that the pair of them were sitting together, Djaq snuggled up next to Will, with his arm draped over her shoulders and his cloak wrapped around her.

"Acre is a busy port—it won't be hard for a group our size to slip unnoticed into the city," Robin was saying. There was a listless sound to his voice and his face was drawn and pale and his eyes were darkened and hollow. He hardly looked anything like the brave leader they all knew and loved; he was just a shadow now. A very tired, scared shadow.

"Really?" Allan asked. All eyes turned on him. "Even though we're—well, except for one notable exception—even though we're English? I mean… we don't hardly look Saracen enough to be inconspicuous, do we?"

"Acre is a port city, and Europeans of all kinds come through," Djaq said quickly, before anybody could say anything condescending or mean to the man. "English, French, German, everything—as long as we do not do anything to draw attention to ourselves, you being pale-faced will not rouse anybody's attention."

"Are you sure?" John asked slowly. He'd only just woken up for this conversation, and looked ready to go back to sleep already. "We can_not_ afford for anything to go wrong."

"If I remember right, it's a fairly even mix of Saracen and European," Much said. "And it's _busy. _We would have to cause a huge scene for anybody to notice us."

"Speaking of scenes," Robin began, looking pointedly at his former manservant with as much intensity as he could manage with his dulled and tired blue eyes. "Remember that we are _a team_ for this. Our success here depends on all of us working together."

The man looked taken aback and frowned. "I know _that—"_

"This means _no_ dredging up old grievances and _no_ trying to make some sort of a point by ignoring _certain people_ at crucial moments."

Much looked down into his lap; his ears were red. Allan didn't look like much of anything, just sat still in his spot and listened for Robin to continue.

"Hey, I just thought of something," he piped up after a moment. "I mean—you said English people wouldn't be noticed, but what about…" he trailed off.

"What about what?" Will asked.

"I mean, no offense or anything, but what about Djaq? Would we say she's our guide or something? I'm sure they'd recognize a lone Saracen woman travelling with a group of Englishmen as something odd, wouldn't they?"

Robin said nothing; Much looked back down at his lap again and then over at Djaq. After several long, long seconds of pause, she realized that it was up to her to explain this to him—and to Will and John, as well.

"It is not particularly uncommon for some women who are… facing hard times," she gently nibbled her lower lip and tried to figure out the best way to phrase this without sounding completely crass. "Some women find it lucrative to avail themselves to the Crusaders who come through the ports. Or hang around Crusader's camps."

"Camp-followers?" Will asked. She tilted her head back to see his surprised expression, and then shrugged.

"The men are thousands of miles from home in a strange country, trying to kill other soldiers who are not even old enough to shave—cold and scared and lonely," she said as a way of explaining it away. Another shrug. "As long as we do not give them reason to think otherwise, the dock workers will simply thing I am with you for that."

"I don't like that," he murmured in her ear. "I don't like the idea of you being thought of as… as something like _that."_

She rested her hand on his knee under the covering of his cloak and squeezed gently.

"It's a cover," Robin reassured him gently. "We should blend in as best as we can, and if that means letting the locals believe that our Djaq is a common prostitute, then that's what we'll have to do."

She felt him hold her a little tighter around her shoulders. It didn't bother _her, _the idea of letting the dock workers and the city folk think she was nothing but a woman of ill repute following English Crusaders to earn a meal or a few coins, but she knew it made Will extremely uncomfortable. He loved her far too much to even let complete strangers think such a thing about her.

The equivalent of this on her end, she supposed, was the way she knew that all of her people—the Saracens—would look at all of her friends, and not just Will, as simple, disgusting people. The general view of the Europeans by her countrymen wasn't a particularly a good one; the fact that most of Europe was significantly less developed, in just about every way imaginable, than her world was led to a great deal of prejudice by her own people towards them. It was a common perception that Europeans—all of them—were barbarians. She believed this once, too, before she'd actually known any Europeans. Nowadays such thinking bothered her, because she loved her friends dearly, but it bothered her more that they would think it of Will. Will Scarlett, one of the cleverest, most resourceful men she'd ever known; he had a gift for carpentry and woodwork that would surely impress the artisans even here.

He gently burrowed one warm hand under her shirt to stroke her side with his thumb, and she sighed softly.

Robin was still talking, and she forced herself to pay attention to him.

"We hit the ground running," he said. "The minute we dock, we look for the King's encampment—"

"Robin," Will interrupted in quietly cautious tones. "What about…?"

He closed his eyes tightly and turned away from them, rubbing his forehead slowly like he had a tremendous headache.

"We have to save the King before we can look for Marian," he said slowly. It took a great deal for him to say this, for him to acknowledge that there was something that had to be done, something more important than rescuing his beloved. "If something happens to him, we're _all_ dead. With his help, we can rescue Marian from the Sherriff and Gisbourne."

Much reached out and tentatively put a hand on his shoulder, but he roughly shook him off.

"What do we do in the meantime?" Allan asked. "I mean… we can't just dock in Acre and go right for the King's camp, can we?"

"We'll need to find somebody who _knows_ where His Majesty is, and then we'll need some sort of land transportation to get there," Much agreed. "Caravans, camels, horses—anything."

"What's a camel?" Allan asked. His question was swiftly ignored.

"And a place to stay, as well, in the meantime," Will said. "I don't really think we'll be able to walk right onto the docks and immediately find somebody to tell us where the King is and how to get there."

"Good idea."

"What's a camel?"

Again, nobody answered Allan's question, and the conversation continued around him.

"There are inns all over the city," Robin said. "We can find a place."

"In case anybody else has forgotten," John growled, low and threatening like a big angry dog. "We have _nothing_ but the clothes on our backs. Most of the money we had with us went to bartering passage here—I don't think that we can afford to spend more than a night or two in an inn."

She wrinkled her nose.

"He's right," Much sighed. He pounded his fists on his shield. "Dammit! So what do you think we do, Master?"

Robin put his face in his hands. He looked like he wanted to get up and walk away from here and go back to living in his head like he had been for days and leave the rest of them alone.

"I do not think we will have a problem," Djaq said after a pause.

"And what makes you say _that?"_ Much growled, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at her in a condescending manner. Behind her, she felt Will tense.

"My uncle, Bassam, lives in Acre."

Pause.

"Oh!"

"If we can make it to his estate, I think he will not have any problems letting us stay there. For a little while, at least."

"You think he'd let us?" Will asked.

"I am sure of it. He… he took care of me and my brother. After our father died and we had nowhere to go, he took us in. He always said that I was a good judge of character, and he trusts me. I have no reason to think he would turn us away. If nothing else, than because it is the right thing to do—helping weary, penniless travellers."

"What if he doesn't live there anymore?" Much asked. "What do we do then?"

She snorted. "Bassam would not leave that house if it was _on fire," _she said. "His birds are there, and his life is there. He would not have left."

"So it's settled then," Robin said. "We get to Acre and look for Bassam's house. Then find the King."

"For goodness sake—_what's a camel?"_

"A horse with bosoms, Allan!" Djaq bellowed, tired of hearing that question.

Silence.

Across from her, she saw a smile come over Robin's face—slowly at first, and she wasn't sure if he was getting ready to yell at her or do something else. It wasn't a full smile, and there was still a gaunt hollowness behind it, but it was still a smile. Then it widened, and for the first time in weeks, Robin Hood actually laughed.

It was _something._

After that, began to storm for days at a time, forcing everybody to spend time below deck if they didn't want their only clothing to get soaked through with rain. The water had become choppy, making more cases of seasickness for Djaq to remedy and filling her days with green passengers and sick when she wasn't with Allan or Will.

For now, though, the two of them were alone in their cupboard and quietly dozing together, the hammock swaying from side to side as the ship rocked. The faint light of early morning seeped in through the little porthole high on the wall, greenish-yellow in colour from the previous storms, giving the little room an eerie, ghostly glow.

She was nestled in Will's embrace, on her stomach with her arms pillowed on his chest and her head turned to the side, listening to his heartbeat; he absently stroked her hair, his other arm around her back. It was silent but for the gentle creaking around them and the soft sounds of their breathing. He was warm under her and his legs were wrapped around hers, and the cloak and blanket were draped over her, keeping her comfortable and warm amid the chilly air. They were bare, but they hadn't had sex the night before—they just wanted to sleep together, feel their bare bodies pressed against each other.

This peace was nice—just _touching_ him was nice.

She turned around and planted a little kiss to his chest, just over his heart, and he tightened his hold on her. He was smiling dreamily and his eyes were closed. He buried his fingers in her hair and gently stroked down her back with his fingernails, and she sighed. She kissed him again and again, warm and slow little kisses on his chest, nuzzling him affectionately. She pulled herself a little further up and continued mouthing kisses on him, biting his nipple and startling him so badly he almost fell right out of their perch. She giggled and kissed it, soothing away the sting.

"Don't _do_ that!" He gasped.

"Why not?" She giggled. "You do it to me all the time."

"I—I… well, that's—uh…" He looked almost guilty as he garbled his words and blushed a vibrantly pink colour.

She laughed softly again at him and kissed his shoulder, and he relaxed. Then she moved her hands down to his sides and tickled him vigorously. He yelped and squirmed in place, trying to make her stop or to get away from her hands without actually going anywhere. He gripped both of her wrists in one of his hands.

"Don't do _that,_ either!" He scolded.

"You are _very_ ticklish," she purred, grinning.

"Yes, I am!" He jolted when she freed her hands and tickled him again. "Stop that!" He begged. "If you keep tickling me, I swear I'll dump us _both_ out of this thing!"

And odd mix of growling and laughter rumbled up in his throat as she tickled him again. He grabbed her wrists a second time to make her stop, and this time held them tightly so she couldn't escape. When she realized she couldn't free her hands, she loosed a disappointed sigh.

"You are no fun at all," she grumbled. She flexed her fingers on his chest, just to irritate him.

"Hey, come _on!"_ He pleaded. "How do _you_ like it?" He pulled her arms up and used his free hand to tickle her side, in an attempt to 'get even' with her, but she merely grinned.

"It will not work on me," she drawled. "I enjoy it." She kissed his shoulder again, and then his neck—as far up as she could reach.

After a moment, he released her hands and let her inch up his torso so that she could comfortably rest against his shoulder with her face in the crook of his neck and her arm looped around his shoulder; he kept his arm around her back and his other hand went back to gently stroking her short dark hair. For a long while, they just lay like that together, warm and snug and still.

It was Will that broke the silence.

"Djaq?"

She felt his chest vibrate as he murmured her name. She was giddy and woozy as she answered him with a vague hum. He took it to mean she was paying attention and continued.

"What's after this?"

She pushed herself up. The question was vague but it was voiced with enough gravity that suggested he was thinking something important.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean… what happens later? After all of this, when we're back in the forest?"

Pause.

"We can't go back to the way things used to be. Not after… not after we've had _this."_

"Things are going to change," she agreed. "There is no doubt about that."

He nodded. "But it's just—_how?_ How will everything change?"

"I suspect we shall be sharing a bed," she offered wryly. "And sneaking off into the forest when we have a few minutes to spare. It would certainly give Much something to talk of 'honey' about."

He laughed softly, but half-heartedly. "I just meant what was in the future for—_us."_

She stayed quiet, hovering over him and looking into his eyes. Conflict and confusion passed over his face, as if he was debating whether or not to tell her something; she could think of no words of her own that would help him, so she waited for him to speak.

He looked away from her and fidgeted. "How might things change if… if we were… married?"

Djaq tried to keep her face straight, but the widening of her eyes immediately betrayed her surprise.

_Married?_ Had he just… was that a proposal? She wasn't sure if she trusted her own ears or her own comprehension at the moment.

She hadn't thought much if at all about the more distant future with Will Scarlett—anything beyond their trip to Acre and the mission that awaited them seemed implausibly far away. She was, until this second, perfectly content to just worry about _now;_ to think of the future no further than tomorrow or perhaps the night ahead of them, of feeling his skin on hers as they settled into their cupboard for the night.

Thinking of this more distant possibility was almost frightening. Exactly _how_ distant was this? Surely he didn't mean to suggest that they should marry as soon as possible, did he? With their mission in Acre just on the horizon, and a world of trouble with Gisbourne and the Sherriff always on their minds, it certainly didn't seem an appropriate time or place for a marriage. Particularly not one between the poor English carpenter and the Saracen physician born to privilege—people of two different worlds.

But she didn't _not_ want to _marry_ him. To the contrary—now that she thought on it, she couldn't imagine _not_ being with him for as long as was possible. Whether they married or not, she wanted to be with him.

"Look," he said softly, cutting into her thoughts with his gentle voice. He looked at her now with a shy little smile that made her heart flutter. "I don't mean we leap up on deck and have he captain marry us as soon as we have our clothes on. I just meant… _someday._ When we've finished our business in Acre, after we've rescued Marian and saved the King, and when we've sorted out the Sherriff and he and Gisbourne aren't a problem anymore. Once we're back home. Would you—would you marry me?"

Pause.

"I would get down on one knee, but I don't want to turn you out of bed for that."

Pause.

The smile on his face began to falter. She tried to reassure him with some kind of answer, but she couldn't remember how to make her voice work. In that one instant, she'd forgotten the entire English language.

She snapped her mouth closed with a _click!_ and swallowed a few times to remoisten her throat before she tried to talk again. She could only form two words.

"Oh, Will," she sighed, burrowing her face in his neck and hugging him around his naked shoulders. She was somewhere between laughing and crying. Once she calmed down, she kissed the side of his beautiful long neck and then moved to his lips, kissing him over and over again, smiling against his mouth.

"Djaq—" he only got her name out between her kisses.

"Yes, yes, yes," she whispered. "Of _course_ I will."

"What—_really?"_ He actually sounded surprised.

"Of course, really. I am completely sure of this—I love you. I never thought of marrying anybody before you."

She settled back down against his chest again; he turned his head to the side to look at her and kissed her forehead.

"Good," he whispered. "Until then—stay with me. Always."

She nodded slowly into his neck. She was sleepy now, her eyelids heavy and her head fuzzy. "Always."

o…o

0…0…0…0…0

Will proposed! Djaq said yes! This chapter ended so disgustingly sweetly that it could melt your socks! I've been assured that the ending isn't too schmaltzy, but it's so syrupy sweet that it might make your teeth rot right out of your head.

My favourite bit was Djaq's way of explaining to Allan what a camel is. Can you think of a better way? Me neither.


	9. Nine

There's some nauseating cuteness ahead in this chapter. You might want to check your socks! Thanks to this irritating little story flaw—the _plot_—the story also turns a little bittersweet here. I think it's a little bit redundant by now to point out that this story's gotten a bit out of control, and to _swear_ that I never meant for the story to get this long. It was just supposed to be a one- or two-shot with some dirty fluff in it, and it turned into a proper fully-chaptered story. Anyway—enjoy the chapter, and happy Halloween to those of you who celebrate it. (My philosophy is that you're never too old for funny costumes and free candy.)

Disclaimer: The disclaimer hasn't changed. I don't own the characters I'm using. If you'd like to pretend I do, though, I won't object.

0…0…0…0…0

o…o

He'd never seen a house as big as this one before. Djaq wasn't lying when she warned them that her adoptive uncle was a very wealthy man. All of the houses in this city were huge and ornate, more than anything he had ever seen before in England. Bassam's estate—it really _was_ an estate, many floors high and sprawling and massive, laid out on a courtyard with elaborate gardens—was bigger and grander than Locksley Manor or even the castle at Nottingham.

The whole house was _open,_ even indoors. Since it was the middle of November and still reasonably warm—not the bitter, rainy cold he'd become accustomed to in England—he imagined that the winters here were mild at worst, and so there was no need for thick, insulating walls to heat the house. There were open archways leading from room to room, instead of doors, often open or separated from other rooms by little more than a curtain, and the roof was slightly domed. It made the house look almost bigger on the inside than it was on the outside.

There were fountains indoors as well as in the courtyard, masterfully carved stone lion's heads trickling water into artificial square ponds or basins at will. It seemed almost like _magic._

The very furniture in the house was of higher quality than anything he would ever have expected to see in his entire life. The woodcarvers and carpenters and artisans in Acre must have been the most skilled artisans anywhere in the whole world. It made him feel like a clumsy, bumbling novice.

Will looked with an awed expression around the house, at the carved wooden window screens and the expensive silks draped everywhere. This was where Djaq lived, where she grew up. Wealth and privilege were at her fingertips. She had _servants!_ It was astounding that she would have given this life of leisure up, willingly, and left it all behind. She must have known when she disguised herself as her brother, and when she was taken slave and taken away from her homeland, that she would never live this life again. It was only a rather unfortunate twist of fate that they found themselves here now. But she _chose_ to stay in England with a bunch of dirty outlawed men that she hardly knew, living in a dirty forest and doing dirty work. Once she was free, there was nothing to stop her from leaving and coming back to this, but she didn't.

He was looking up at the ceiling as he absently walked around—there were decorations and carvings and funny markings _on the ceiling_ in this place, like they couldn't find anywhere else to put it—in absolute astonishment. Even though he knew, in his heart, that Djaq loved him completely, there was still a tiny little niggling part of his mind that doubted if he was truly worthy of this woman. Especially considering her upbringing; what could he, a simple and poor carpenter who couldn't even write his own name, offer to this woman who seemingly had _everything?_

Himself, a little voice in the back of his head answered the question. She loved _him,_ she wanted _him._ She made that abundantly clear, and he could never doubt her. Perhaps, though, he thought, this was why she seldom offered up details about her past—she might have feared that the knowledge of this wealth would intimidate them, and in particular him. This world was so startlingly different from the one that he grew up in.

Suddenly, he felt himself stumble mightily, flailing around like a drunken acrobat and trying to catch himself as he tripped over a low foot stool and tumbled gracelessly to the ground. A timid-looking veiled servant girl in the corner of the room lifted her hand and covered her mouth, suppressing her quiet laughter but still looking at him with big, wide black eyes, as if she wasn't completely sure what to make of him.

"Are you all right?"

The familiar voice made him look up into Djaq's grinning face. She didn't look at all concerned that he'd just fallen down.

"Fine," he said quickly, pulling himself onto his feet. She offered her hand and helped him up. "I didn't see it."

She turned over her shoulder and addressed the still-giggling servant girl in the corner, speaking in rapid Arabic. The girl nodded quickly and scurried from the room like a frightened mouse on her little cloth slippers in a flutter of colourful fabrics and drapes and shawls. He was used to seeing her order people around—except for Robin, she was the best natural leader in their group—but it felt different seeing her give orders to a servant.

"I hope you didn't yell at her," he said.

"Of course not. Why would I do that?"

"She was laughing."

"So was I."

"Ah."

Pause.

"You were staring at the ceiling."

"It's the first time I've ever seen a place with artwork on the ceilings."

She looked up, causing the hood made of her shawl to fall from her head. "Oh, that. It is calligraphy."

"Is it?" He looked back up again. Even though he couldn't read, he _did_ recognize a few letters, and these didn't look like any he'd ever seen before. "Doesn't look like any words I've ever seen."

"Arabic writing is different from English."

"What's it say?"

She squinted. "The names of family members, ancestors. Hasim, Maram, Aamina, Laila. Bassam, Faridah, Jibril…" she trailed off and frowned.

"What?"

"That one is new," she said softly, pointing up directly over their heads. He looked but he couldn't pinpoint the mark she meant. They were all completely alien to him, swirls and lines and funny shapes that certainly _looked_ pretty but that didn't mean anything to him.

"Which one?"

"That one, at the edge there."

"What is it?"

"It says… Safiyyah."

Pause.

"Your name," he said softly. "Your _real_ name."

She didn't say anything. Her expression was unreadable and her eyes were wide. Clearly, this change meant something significant to her, but he couldn't begin to guess what and he felt that the time probably wasn't appropriate to ask.

She stared at that ceiling for a long time, so long that he wondered if she hadn't forgotten about him.

Then she shook her head quickly and she smiled gently at him.

"Come with me," she said, taking his hand. "There is something I want to show you."

He followed her obediently, like a puppy following his master. Before they arrived in Acre—before they _snuck into_ the city, was more like it; it was harder getting into this heavily-guarded city than the Sherriff's castle in Nottingham—he wasn't completely sure what she would or wouldn't do around her uncle. He'd almost expected her to be a little less openly affectionate towards him now that they were on land and among her countrymen—_particularly_ in front of her uncle, who practically brought her up. But she didn't seem to care, and disregarded the stares from onlookers at their joined hands and lovestruck smiles.

He quite liked it. There was a certain swell of pride in him, knowing that anybody who looked would see them close and joined like this and know that she was _his,_ that this beautiful woman had chosen him.

She led him now through a labyrinth of rooms and hallways with the ease of practice, ending up in another open room, this one very simple and undecorated, with a fountain and little perches and bird baths. The trickling water echoed in the quiet room and the long rectangular 'pond' threw the half-light of evening around in little ripples. All along one of the walls, there were niches cut into the stone and covered by wire cage doors. In each one was a little white or gray pigeon.

He turned to her and grinned. "Pigeons. I remember you talking about them."

"The aviary," she said, absently reaching in between the little wire door and stroking a bird on the back through the cage. "I used to come here whenever I wanted to be alone. Sometimes I would talk to them—I liked to pretend they could understand me." She had a little half-smile on her face.

The idea of Djaq talking to birds seemed so at odds with the woman he knew. It was almost childlike and sweetly innocent.

He knelt and reached for one of the cages, cautiously petting the little white bird with his fingers; it looked back at him with those little glossy black eyes, cocking its head to the side and crooning softly as if he was some kind of curiosity. When he put his hand down, the bird jumped into his palm as if this was the most natural thing in the world. It sat there, gently cooing and looking at him; he stroked the soft feathers gently as he held it.

He saw her stand next to him, smiling down at him, and he couldn't help but return it with one of his own as he placed the pigeon back into the little cubby hole and closed the hatch.

"When I was a little girl, I loved these birds," she explained to him as they walked slowly through the aviary side-by-side. "I thought, when I grew up, I would live here and train them—the closest I would ever get to flight."

She looked off dreamily into the distance through one of the high windows; just then, with the orange glow of late evening on her face, she was unearthly beautiful. No other woman in the world could approach her, ever.

"Do you understand?" She asked, turning to him with those big black-gem eyes.

"Yeah," he said softly. "Yeah, I do, actually."

They both smiled then, wide and understanding. Bassam was watching them carefully from the edge of the aviary, but Will neither noticed nor cared.

Their isolated little bubble was deflated as they walked up the little step into the dining room where the rest of the gang sat on cushions around a low table, bowls and plates piled with food for the house guests. He still found it somewhat surprising that this man would go through this sort of trouble or hospitality for total strangers—Europeans, too. He truly was a gracious man. They would owe him, and Djaq, for this kindness.

The rest of the gang was taking advantage of the food present to eat their fill, before they were to go off in search of the King and not have another opportunity like this for some time. Robin was speaking with Bassam, about the urgency of the mission that lay ahead of them and their need for his help. She spoke on their behalf, telling her uncle that their mission was indeed one of peace and that they wanted to meet the English King to convince him to stop fighting and come back.

But for the most part, he didn't hear any of her words; instead, he sat quietly at his seat, staring across the table at the woman he so dearly loved. She was the only person in his line of sight. Everybody else was a blur on the fringes of his awareness.

Servants were sent scurrying all over the house during the early evening, setting up quarters and beds for the onslaught of new guests. Even this grand house didn't have enough spare bedrooms for all six of them to have their own rooms. Only Djaq was guaranteed her own, and that was merely because she was a woman and couldn't be expected to share a room with a _man._

She must not have thought it appropriate to point out to her uncle that she did just that all the time in the forest.

Sleeping arrangements were decided amongst themselves. Much and Robin and John would have one room; nobody except for Djaq and Will had forgiven Allan enough to decide that either of them would be willing to share a room with him, so Will decided to take the room with him. Djaq's room was on the floor above her friend's rooms, in the bedchamber she'd occupied when she was younger and still lived in this house, all by herself at night for the first time in years.

"It feels strange," she confessed to Will as they sat together in the aviary as the rest of their friends were in the various other quarters of the house, occupying the time between supper and bed in their own ways.

"How so?" He asked, looking up from the russet-red and white pigeon she placed in his cupped hands.

"I have not slept alone in a very long time. It will feel… _lonely."_

"I don't suppose your uncle has any unused cupboards somewhere in this house, does he?" He teased. Djaq laughed.

"Oh, I remember there being little hiding places all over the place—but I doubt that I would be small enough to fit into any of them now, let alone for _two_ of us to fit. It was much easier to hide in this house when I was eight."

He sighed and shook his head. He looked a little disappointed, and, really, so was she. She'd have liked to have spent the night with him—whether or not they _did_ anything, she just wanted to sleep with him. Having grown used to sleeping all night with him, nestled together in their blankets, over the past few weeks on board the ship, she didn't think it would be easy to transition back to sleeping on her own.

The thought of sleeping by herself, away from the rest of the gang and separated by an entire floor, was almost _scary_. Like a child afraid of the dark. She was so used to them being _there,_ for there to be other people sleeping peacefully and breathing evenly around her. Sleeping alone would feel… eerie. She didn't want to, but she knew that her uncle would never hear of her sleeping in a room with _men,_ and there was no way she could innocuously sneak into Will's bed or for him to sneak into hers. Not in Bassam's house. Not with the servants who worked for him breathing down her neck; these people had known her for a long time and knew all of her tricks. She would be able to sneak nothing by them.

But she still didn't want to sleep alone, especially not tonight. They all knew how dangerous the days ahead of them would be; their mission began tomorrow morning at first light, when they would be taken to King Richard's encampment in the desert. With the knowledge of the possibility that any of them could be killed any time after morning, she wanted to spend tonight with him.

He was silent, probably caught up in his own thoughts. She took the pigeon from him and put her back into her roost for the night; as she did so, he stood behind her and placed a hand on the nape of her neck, standing close to her and breathing her scent with his lips against her hair.

From one of the aviary's doorways, a woman cleared her throat. They sprang apart quickly. The middle-aged servant woman covered her small smile with the back of her hand before she spoke.

"_Safiyyah,"_ she said. _"All six beds are all arranged for the night. I think it's best you all get a good night's sleep tonight."_

"_Of course,"_ she answered in her native tongue. Will frowned in confusion, not understanding a thing that was being said. "She says that all the beds are made, and we should get some sleep."

"We have a bedtime? We can't stay here for a while?"

"You cannot argue with Ayla," she told him. "She is very stubborn."

"Like another woman I know."

She bit her lower lip a little bit. _"Ayla, we'd like a few more minutes, if you don't mind."_

"What're you saying?" Will asked, looking piteously lost.

"I asked if we might have a few more minutes of privacy," she said. "I do not want to go yet—do you?"

"No."

The woman shook her head. _"No, Safiyyah. You've a long day ahead of you. Both of you shall need as much rest as you can get."_

Djaq sighed. _"But—"_

"_Safiyyah,"_ Ayla said gently, coming to rest a weathered hand on her shoulder. Then she smiled, a wide, cheeky, toothy smile that the younger woman had never associated with _anything_ good when it came from Ayla. _"I said that six beds were made. Six beds do _not_ have to be occupied."_

Her eyebrows rose slowly in surprise at the realization of what the woman had said.

"_I expect you both to be in bed in ten minutes," _she finished. _"Goodnight, Safiyyah."_ She switched to halting, broken English. "Have a sleep well, Englishman."

And with that she left the aviary.

"Why are you smiling?" Will asked suspiciously.

She was giggling as she repeated Ayla's words to him in English, keeping her voice low. Then she stood on her toes and pecked him on the lips before trotting out of the aviary and making her way up the winding flights of stairs to her bedroom for the night.

Even with Ayla's words and Will's newfound brazenness, she very much doubted that he would actually traverse the dark and unfamiliar house in the middle of the night in order to sneak into her bed. He was still too shy for that, too self-conscious, and mostly likely scared of being caught by Bassam and horribly lambasted for it. But perhaps planting the idea in his mind would be enough to make him consider it.

But she _desperately_ didn't want to be by herself tonight.

She fell into bed, finding the feathery mattress to be far too soft after being used to sleeping on the ground in the forest for such a long time. It had been many, many years since she'd been in this room—the delicate, gauzy drapes, the silk sheets, the soft pillows and the expensive room décor all looked alien to her.

The room was eerily empty. She half-expected to be able to move through the dark and encounter the sleeping bodies of her comrades, but she knew they were all in other rooms and away from her.

It was warm, as well—too warm. Not hot, but still not what she'd grown accustomed to. She was used to the forest nights during this time of year being very cold, not like it was here in Acre. She'd long forgotten how this felt, and it wasn't comfortable.

Sleep did not come easy; she lay back in the bed, staring at the silky canopy above her bed and the ceiling overhead. The wooden window screens cast X-shaped shadows across the room. She had no idea how long she lay there, staring at the door and waiting for it to open and reveal her lover come to see her, but it must have been a long time and eventually she accepted that she would be spending the night by herself. Will probably couldn't get away from Allan, and she could hardly sneak through the house and go to _his_ room.

She didn't much like this, but there was little she could do about it.

She was just beginning to doze off into that hazy pre-sleep when a sound outside the window surprised her into fully alert wakefulness. She sat up in bed, straining to hear through the still air. It sounded like there was somebody outside. Instinct took over and she immediately thought the worst—that somebody was trying to break into the house and hurt somebody or steal their things. The fact that she was three floors up and that a potential thief would have to be an idiot to try to break into the house at this level didn't occur to her as she grabbed the closest improvised weapon she could lay her hands on—a brass bedside taper cradle—and took up her position by the window in wait.

The figure outside was silhouetted against the light of the moon and obscured behind the latticed window screen. She couldn't see him—she was sure it was a man—in any detail, but he couldn't see her from this angle, either. As soon as the window was opened, a tall, lanky figure slipped carefully through and planted his feet quietly on the floor.

She was just about ready to bash the intruder, whoever he was, on the head with her weapon and thrash him soundly for intruding on her uncle's home when he turned, and his face caught the light, and she saw—

"Will!" She gasped, dropping the taper cradle to the floor with an almighty clatter.

The young man put his hands up defensively, hopping back to get out of her reach lest she decide that she was actually going to hit him.

"I'm sorry!" He apologized in a whisper-yell. "Please don't hit me!"

"You _climbed_ up the _wall?"_ She asked, walking over behind him to stick her head out the open window and looking down the sheer side of the building to the open window of the floor below. It was at least ten feet to the windows of the next level; the only thing he could have _possibly_ gained a foothold on was the shallow little stone lattice up the side of the house. If he'd fallen…

"I didn't know if I'd be able to find your room the normal way," he confessed sheepishly, looking down and blushing pink. "It's a big house and I thought I'd get lost. But I knew you were right above me."

A short little giggle came from her lips and she closed the distance between them, fastening her arms around his waist. Her uncle had provided her—provided _all_ of them—with sleeping attire for the night: plain, long, loose tunics of undyed linen. The thin material was much more comfortable in the warm evening air, not to mention how nice it felt to wear something _clean_ for the first time in goodness knew how long. But Will hadn't put his on, and was still dressed as he had been, in his shirt and tunic and trousers and boots with his cape hanging down over his thin shoulders all the way to the floor. The wool felt comforting and familiar against her cheek as she rested against his chest.

"Have you come to keep me company?" She murmured.

He nodded. "I don't like sleeping without you. I've… I've gotten used to it. I dunno if I could sleep without you again."

She felt her eyes go a little wider upon hearing him say that. How could she be expected to sleep by herself ever again after having grown used to his warmth at her back and his strong arms around her waist and his face buried in her neck?

"That sounds awful, doesn't it?"

"No," she assured him gently, rubbing her cheek against his clothing. "I feel the same way. I think it is sweet."

She pulled him by the sides of his cloak as she backed up towards the edge of the bed where she then sat down, sinking low into the soft mattress. He sat next to her, his body angled to face her; he took both of her hands in his and set them on the bed between them. His pale face was half-lighted by the dim blue-white light of the nearly full moon outside; she leaned forward and pressed a gentle little kiss on his lips. He responded quickly, deepening the kiss and leaning into her.

Inch by inch, she closed the distance between them until she was nearly sitting in his lap. Her hands moved up to clasp his shoulders; his were on her neck and around the top of her back, pulling her close to him. The kisses intensified a little bit, the movement of their mouths on one another growing quicker and harder. She kissed his cheeks and along the line of his jaw, feeling coarse beard stubble on her lips as she went.

She couldn't get enough of him. It just wasn't possible.

As she lay back in the bed, she pulled him down with her by the shoulders until he was holding himself up over her. He kept one hand on her and used the other to pull the cloak ties free and discard the garment, and kicked off his boots quickly. He shifted above her and moved to lie down on his side, supporting himself up on one elbow and using his other arm to pull her closer to him.

They were comfily tangled together, pulling the sheets up around them as they settled into bed side-by-side. His heartbeat was comfortingly rhythmic, his breathing slow and deep and stirring her hair ever so gently. The smells of the forest were long faded from his old, well-loved clothes, the only scent remaining being that of the oily wool itself, familiar and earthy and characteristically English.

She snuggled into his chest and rubbed her cheek against his clothed shoulder. One arm was draped over her side and his hand brought up around her back to gently clasp the ball of her shoulder. His clothing was rough on her cheek, on her partially-bared arms and on her legs, and through the thin fabric of her borrowed tunic; even with his cloak gone there was just too much between them, she decided, and she began to pull at the collar of his shirt and tunic with desperate grasps. She felt overcome with the sudden need to feel as close to him as possible, to press herself to him as quickly and as thoroughly as she could. Tomorrow's plans weighed heavily on her mind; the thought had been in the back of her mind all through dinner, all through the night, and in truth ever since they'd made landfall in Acre. And she was more and more desperate to enjoy Will as much as she could now that their time together could be drawing to a close. She just wanted to be close to him, to touch him. She didn't particularly care to do anything more physical than hold onto him and feel his bare body on hers.

It seemed that Will understood her wordless request in pulling on his clothes so wantonly; he kissed her briefly, then sat up and swiftly pulled his shirt and tunic off over his head all at once, letting them slide off the bed and onto the floor in a dark heap on the cool stone tiles. That done, he leaned forward, backing her into the soft bedding and devouring her lips with sweet, hot, knee-weakening kisses. She returned them with fervour, going completely boneless beneath him.

But she still wasn't completely satisfied. She wanted more of him, _all_ of him. So she started to pull on his trousers, begging him silently to remove them. He did so eagerly, obeying her without a second thought. In any normal situation, she might have found it amusingly odd that Will Scarlett—always so tough and resilient and so very wilful—was complying submissively with her wordless demands without any second thoughts. It seemed so _different_ than the personality of the man she'd grown to know and love over the years—not inherently bad or wrong. Just… strangely at odds.

But this wasn't a normal situation, and she didn't want to waste this night by giggling and spoiling it.

He reached down her body in gentled caresses, sliding one hand up her leg under the fabric of her sleeping tunic. She grabbed his hand and pulled it away before he got any higher than her thigh and pushed him back ever so slightly with her other hand flattened on his chest. He snatched his hand away from her quickly and frowned; his eyes were a little glazed as he looked at her, looking both confused and worried.

The poor boy—he was still frightened of disappointing her and of doing something wrong, even after all this time. She moved the hand up his neck and to his cheek, cupping it gently in her hand. She'd probably confused him as to what, exactly, she wanted.

"What did I—?"

She fidgeted under him, trying to think of how to say this. "I just want to… be close to you. Hold you. It would be more than inappropriate for us to do anything more here, in his house. Is that all right?"

He smiled gently, relieved. He bent low and nuzzled her cheek.

"I don't mind at all," he said. "I'd like that." He lipped her neck and wound his arms around her shoulders.

"Wait."

She slipped out from under him and sat up as she began to hike her tunic up, pulling it out from beneath herself. He gave her a lopsided little grin and reached down to follow the line of her clothing all the way down to the bottom of the bunched-up garment around her hips. He pushed it up her body slowly, his broad hands ghosting oh-so-softly over her skin as he went along. She lifted her arms to let him strip her nightclothes off over her head, leaving her naked before him once again.

They had done this countless times in the last weeks—there was absolutely nothing else to _do_ on the ship—but every time he looked on her, that look of reverent awe came back across his face, as if he was always left in wonder at her. The way he looked at her, the passionate look in his face as his expressively beautiful green eyes studied every inch of her bare body, made her feel, perhaps for the first time in her life, like she was something truly, genuinely beautiful.

With nothing left between them, there was skin on skin again, and it was thrilling and wonderful. She pulled him back to her and kissed him again. He kissed her back, sweetly, gentle little pecks on her lips as they snuggled down once again together; he hugged her snugly back against him, her bare back pressed against his bare chest, holding her close.

With every passing moment, the frightening thoughts of tomorrow—of the possibility of certain doom and the difficult mission that awaited them—drifted further and further from her mind, until all that she was aware of was Will, solid and steady at her back, his hold comfortable and secure around her, his breath warm in her ear and against her cheek.

o…o

The direct eastern exposure of her old room was helpful during the summer months, when the room was cool and shaded during the hottest hours of the day, but Djaq remembered vividly why she didn't like it when the blazing orange light of sunrise came in through the window covers and woke her quite jarringly from her sound sleep. She squinted in the blinding light, bringing one very sluggish arm up to shade her eyes with her hand.

It was _early._ During the lazy weeks on the ship, they hadn't had any reason to wake up in a timely fashion, so they'd grown a bit spoiled by sleeping as late as they pleased. Even when they were in the forest, Robin never insisted they wake at dawn. The rude awakening of bright light in her face was almost enough to make her cranky.

Almost.

Will was still behind her, hugging her in his sleep with his face buried in the side of her neck and a leg over her hip—it was like he wanted to absorb her into his body with his hold. She couldn't be anything but happily content with him there.

She stayed put, not wanting to disturb him by getting up and moving about. She probably couldn't have loosened his grip on her waist and shoulders without a pry bar, anyway. Not that she wanted to move.

She dozed off and on for a while, her head burrowed in the sheets to ward off the painfully bright light from the window.

His hand tightened on her shoulder and he clutched her closer to him, but she didn't realize that he was awake until she felt him kiss her neck. She turned in his hold and snuggling into his chest and nuzzling the base of his throat; he kissed the top of her head, lips lingering in her dark hair.

"Morning," she whispered.

"That light is almost _painful,"_ he groaned softly.

"I know."

Pause.

"Do we have to get up yet?"

"I do not think so."

"Good," he said. He reached behind them and pulled one of the pillows from the head of the bed and propping it up behind her to block the sunlight. "I like this. I'm too comfy to want to go anywhere yet."

"Me too."

"We _will_ have to wake up eventually, though, since…"

He trailed off, not wanting to finish that thought. She knew what he meant and nodded into his chest. Time was ticking slowly through her fingers—soon, they would be forcibly dragged from their little world and dropped into their mission to the Crusader's camp, to rescue the English King and then find Marian and deal with Gisbourne and defeat the Sherriff and…

It was mind-boggling. Part of her—a small but increasingly hard to ignore part—wondered if this was at all possible to accomplish. Certainly they had a lot to do, and they were used to doing a lot of things at once, but so much of their plans hinged on some rather shaky things. That the King trusted Robin; that Gisbourne and the Sherriff, who knew of Marian's secret double-life as the Night Watchman, wouldn't harm her; that the six of them would be able to defend themselves against Saracens and Crusaders alike. The more she thought about it, the more frightening it became.

"Djaq?"

"Hm?"

"I've been… thinking."

She leaned back to look into his face and frowned when she saw the worried look in his eyes. "What of?"

"Today—everything that needs to be done—it's so dangerous."

"I know that. You do not need to remind me."

"And I thought that, maybe…" He fidgeted.

"What?"

"You should stay here."

She sat up abruptly and pushed away from him. _"What?"_

"You'll be safer here than if you came with us to the King's camp."

"I cannot believe I am hearing this!"

"Please," he begged. "Let me speak."

She crossed her arms over her chest and waited for him to try and explain his way out of _this_ mess.

"I saw how those Crusaders looked at you! Like you were some kind of an _animal."_ He frowned and absently gripped the sheets bunched under their bodies. "These are people who would think _nothing_ of running you through for no other reason than because you're Saracen—people who kill others every _day_ for just that reason!"

"I know that," she spat venomously. "I _knew_ before we came here how much danger I would be in. Robin gave us all the opportunity to leave if we did not want to do this. But I came, and I accept the fact that I could die fighting this fight."

"But if something happened to you—"

She cut him off.

"If something happened to _me?"_ She hissed, her face growing hot and pink with her suppressed anger. "Do you think I would not be devastated if something happened to you? There is just as much chance that _you_ could be killed as there is me!"

"This is your home."

"No. It was, once, a long time ago, but not anymore—and I am _not_ the same girl who lived here all those years ago. My life and my home are where _I_ decide that they are, and I have decided that they are in England."

He didn't say anything. He was just _staring_ at her, his eyes so very intense, as if he was trying to take in everything and imprint her into his memory forever. It made her feel fluttery despite her anger at him. She drew her knees up and hugged them tightly to her chest, returning his intense stare with one of her own.

He finally spoke. "I couldn't live with myself if you were hurt, or worse, when I know you could be kept safe here. I _love_ you," he punctuated the words by kissing her shoulder softly. "If I didn't do everything I could to keep you safe…"

"You do not think I feel the same way?" She asked again, gently this time. "I love you, too, Will. I do not want anything to happen to _you_ either—it would destroy me!" She wiped her hand over her cheek. "It would destroy me…" she whispered.

He reached up and stroked her hair from he forehead.

"I understand how you feel—more than you realize."

"I know you do," he sighed. "I just… I wish…" he trailed off.

"What if this were turned around?" She continued. "What if I took away your axe and made you stay here and told you that I love you too much to let you fight for what you believe in? Made you watch at the door while the rest of us went off to fight?"

"Won't you even consider it?"

"I wish I could say that I would, but… I cannot. That would be a downright lie. This is my fight, too. It is not fair to me to try to stop me from doing this. It is my decision. My choice—I made it myself. Please do not try to force me not to fight."

"Djaq…"

"I _know_ what the danger is. As do you."

"Yes."

"This is not the first time we have faced the possibility of death, and certainly it will not be the last. You cannot let this—let _us—_change the way we have always done things. Over-protectiveness does not suit you."

"Is there no way—"

"No. Please stop asking. We are going—_both of us—_together. If we are going to die today, I should like to go down fighting by your side."

"There's no convincing you."

"Absolutely not. Is it so hard for you to let me make this decision for myself?"

He looked down into his lap bashfully. He was silent as the seconds slipped by, as if he was debating whether or not to answer this. "Yes," he admitted, the whispered word barely audible.

His overzealous protectiveness should have irritated her—she hated being smothered and restrained and prevented from making her own decisions. But she couldn't fault him for it, though; she knew exactly how he felt. She hadn't said it, but she desperately wished that _he_ would stay behind at Bassam's house, so that she could be reasonably assured that he was safe.

The fear that death would separate them was intense and real and almost suffocating. Death would part them forever—whether only one of them died or they were both killed. Her Paradise was a different place than his Heaven. Eternity was a long time to be without him, watching him from Paradise without ever being with him.

She shivered. She hated the feeling of certain doom that settled over her.

"I would apologize," she said gently, placing her cupped hand on his pink and sunburned cheek. "But there is nothing to apologize for. This is my choice to make—not yours."

"I know," he murmured. "I'm sorry for pressing it."

"I do not blame you. But you should know better than to try to keep me from the fight that I have chosen."

"Stubborn," he growled gently, affectionately, in her ear.

"Would you have me any other way?"

"Never," he said. Then he looped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her back down with him as he lay back in the bed. "Could we stay here for a while, then?"

She snuggled up to him, her anger dissolved. It was impossible to stay cross with Will. "Of course," she whispered. "We should stay here as long as we can."

o…o

0…0…0…0…0

The story has gone from being a sweetly fluffy tale of Djaq and Will to a rather bittersweet and foreboding thing. So much for melting your socks. I've actually finished writing the story by now (this isn't the last chapter, there are still a few left!), which is also a little bit bittersweet. Granted this story is nowhere _near_ as long as 'Home Fires' was, it still makes me a little sad to see the story coming to a close. I hope you've all enjoyed the read. Until next week then—please drop a note if you feel so inclined. All feedback is appreciated, like always, but never demanded.


	10. Ten

This was a sad chapter, and it took a while to write it. It's less about fluff and more about plot. I'm amazed that I actually _kept_ the plot up this long—all I wanted to do was write a fluffy-smutty one-shot about Will and Djaq and I ended up with this whole story. Such is the price of long-windedness, I suppose. I also can't thank MissWed enough for being my sort-of beta on this story—she helped me quite a bit with this chapter.

Disclaimer: The BBC's Robin Hood isn't my property, nor are any of the characters of events or borrowed lines therein.

0…0…0…0…0

o…o

It was surreal. It was terrifying. It was the worst thing ever. It was the thing that she'd feared the most about their endeavours in her homeland, the worst possible outcome—and it had happened. She was in an awed state of utter, utter shock. The scene played over and over again in her head, in slow motion, every time she closed her eyes. The dread rose in the pit of her stomach, the feeling of defeat flooding through her whole body in realization of what had happened—the sick helplessness when she saw the sword coming through Marian's back and realized that there was nothing she could do to help her or save her life.

She hadn't even had the presence of mind to cry. She was… _numb._ She felt absolutely nothing.

Then they'd buried her, in a clean linen dress and the ruby ring that had been her wedding band for the few fleeting moments between her vows with Robin and the life draining from her body. They gave her, too, one of the white shields with the red cross on it that the Crusaders carried into battle, to declare their faith in their God. He carried her limp body there to the grave himself, kissed her goodbye, and left. He couldn't stand to see them put her in the ground and cover her with earth, and in truth none of them could.

They went back to Bassam's house in a daze. Nobody spoke. Nobody ate. They just sat around the house, bodies taking up room. The Sherriff and Gisbourne both escaped, and were most likely on their way back to England at this very moment to make the lives of the people of Nottingham miserable and carry on with their plans to destroy England once again, but nobody could find it in themselves to care. They were all completely consumed with grief—there was no room for anything else.

They all kept to themselves and ignored one another—to the point where they were accidentally walking into each other when they blindly walked from one room to another, and didn't even notice it.

Her friends alternated between periods of dumb shock, anger, and bitter weeping. Grown men crying bitterly for their fallen comrade and friend. Even John cried—big, strong, solid John Little wept for Marian. Allan, too. All of them.

Except for Robin, who sat still and stony and unfeeling, like a human statue.

This had been her worst fear, the one thing that scared her more than anything—lovers being parted by death. The pain of anguish gripped her, hate and fear and shock and disbelief all jumbled together inside of her. It left a sick feeling in her stomach and a bad taste in her mouth—and it wasn't even _her_ love who had been killed. She couldn't begin to fathom what Robin was feeling right now. Whatever grief she, and the rest of them, felt couldn't begin to compare with their friend and leader's pain and anguish. He had always been such a strong man, so tough and resilient, and now he seemed so frail and human and _broken._ A man who had lost his reason for living. He would never be the same again.

He was probably still completely numb and unfeeling and in denial—once he realized what had happened, he would be an absolute mess.

In the meantime, they would leave him alone. That was what he wanted, and they were in no mood to try to offer him comfort or kind words or reassurance. It would all be futile in the end, anyway. Their words would just be hollow and empty, and they wouldn't even believe it themselves, and no empty words they could possibly come up with would help heal his wounds.

Djaq was sitting in the aviary, tucked into a tiny little nook near the back, in the shadows, where nobody would see her or find her or bother her, and she could be alone. She had absolutely no desire for food or company, not even Will. All she wanted to do was to cry for Robin and Marian, but the fist-sized lump caught in her throat near the top of her neck and she couldn't make it go any further.

Even the familiar gentle cooing of the pigeons around her did nothing to calm her mind or settle her uneasy spirits.

So she just sat there, her legs drawn up to her chest and her feet braced on the other side of the corner; she wrapped her arms around her tucked-up legs and put her face against her knees. She wished she could cry—just open the floodgates of emotion and let herself go. But she couldn't do it. The lump stayed firmly lodged in her throat, hard and painful and choking her.

Maybe she had been desensitized to death and loss and pain. Working as a battlefield physician for such a long time, seeing people die of horrific injuries every day for years and years; she couldn't show her pain or her feelings to the men she treated, or to those she worked with. She kept it all bottled up inside, learned to swallow her pain and her tears and to keep her feelings from showing. Even before she became a battlefield physician, when she saw the people in her homeland slaughtered by Crusaders on their bloody, violent 'holy war', she learned how not to feel the pain. Her defense against the overwhelming and crippling grief of loss had always been to simply ignore it and not feel anymore—after all, if she felt pain for all of the injured, bled for all of the bleeding, she would long ago have gone mad. And so she learned how not to feel it at all, become detached from it, and she eventually had stopped being affected by the pain of death. That might well have been the worst thing of all—that she couldn't even cry for her friends.

Footsteps sounded on the stone floor nearby, and she ignored them in hopes that whoever it was would just walk through the aviary and not notice her. The footsteps grew closer, and she instinctively tightened a little more into her little ball and tried to be as invisible as possible. The last thing she wanted right now was to have to talk to somebody.

She inched into the shadows of the darkened aviary and waited for the visitor to leave.

"Hi. I thought you might be in here."

The low male voice sounded over her head. It sounded exactly like she felt, the voice thick and listless and tired, as if he had to concentrate on actually getting the words out.

She looked up slowly into Will's drawn face and tired green eyes; he didn't smile, and neither did she. She wanted to tell him that she'd rather be alone, be by herself with her thoughts for a while, that she would rather not have any company right now—but she couldn't make her voice work and so she didn't say anything at all. She looked away and turned her face back into her knees.

"D'you mind if I sit here?"

She remained silent; he took this to mean that she didn't mind and sank to the floor beside her. He looked just as exhausted and emotionally drained as she felt. The spark was gone from his eyes and he looked even paler than usual under the pinkish-red sunburn and the thin layer of dust on his face.

When he reached out to touch her shoulder, she wriggled away from him, not wanting to touch or be touched right now.

"Djaq…"

"No," she croaked around that uncomfortable lump in her throat. "I don't want—I just want to—" she cut herself off. She didn't know how to explain it. She sniffled.

"You can cry," he said.

"I cannot."

"Go ahead. I won't care."

"No, you do not understand. I… I _can't_ cry."

"What?"

"I just… _can't."_

"Why?"

"I do not feel death anymore," she sighed. "I have seen it too many times. Here and in Nottingham, on the battlefield and off. It just… _is._ And now I simply cannot feel it anymore—Marian was my friend, and I loved her and admired her, and now she is dead and I cannot even feel sad."

"Weird. I've only just _stopped_ crying." His voice was dry and raspy and humourless. "I feel like a sissy."

"You should not," she said. "I envy you. I would give my soul to be able to cry like that."

"I'm sorry."

"So am I."

Silence.

He inched closer to her, and she inched away; he put a tentative hand on her shoulder and she coldly shrugged him off.

"Please," he begged. "Don't move away."

"I am sorry," she apologized. He reached out again, put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him. This time, she didn't pull away. It took all of her strength and willpower to resist the overwhelming urge to push him off of her and run away—if nothing else than for him. _He_ needed this.

He wound his arms around her waist and shoulders and pulled her closer to him, practically into his lap, and held her tightly; he buried his face in her shoulder, shuddering breaths against her neck. His arms shook as he clutched her. She sat there dumbly, stiffly, unsure what to do.

It was several long moments before she realized that he was crying again.

This took her by surprise for a fleeting moment before she steeled herself and gathered him into her arms, holding him protectively as one might hold a small, frightened child; he crumbled into her hold and wept piteously against her, his whole body racked with bitter sobs. She pressed her lips to the top of his head, clucking softly, crooning gently and reassuringly in Arabic as he cried.

"I don't believe it," he sobbed. "I just can't believe she's really gone."

"Neither can I," she murmured.

"It doesn't seem real."

"I know."

He hugged her tighter, crushing her in his arms as he continued to tremble and cry. She could hear him sobbing and feel the tears rubbing off from his cheeks to her skin and dampening her clothes. Her heart wrenched for him. This was the first time she'd been confronted so directly with the bitter pain of Marian's loss—for days, she had distanced herself from her friends as they all found ways to separately deal with their sorrow. She knew they had all been sad and grief-stricken, and that they had cried for their fallen friend and for Robin, but she did her best to keep away from them and keep to herself.

But as Will grasped her, crushed her in his arms as he held her, the lump in her throat swelled and strangled her; the desire to just break down and cry was so intense that it actually hurt. Sobs shook his body and his arms trembled, but it took her some time to notice that she, too, was shivering. He sniffled gently and hiccoughed into her shoulder, holding his breath in an attempt to keep his sobs under control.

"You do not have to try to stop," she told him. "It does no good to hold it in."

"I'd've thought I'd cried enough already."

"There is no such thing."

He sat back, raising his head from her neck and bringing one hand up to wipe the tears from his face. There were tear-tracks in the dust on his cheeks. He looked absolutely heart-breakingly sad, his eyes red and bloodshot and glistening with unfallen tears. She leaned forward and pressed a gentle, lingering kiss to his forehead.

As she looked into his eyes again, she felt that painful lump in her throat slowly begin to dissolve—there was a rush of emotion through her veins, loosening and flowing through her whole body. It was a strangely relieving feeling, as if a tight and constricting hand on her neck and chest had been released. As she released a long, slow, shaky breath that she didn't even know she'd been holding, the floodgates opened up; tears spilled down her own cheeks.

Crying.

She couldn't even _remember_ the last time she'd done this. Nobody _ever_ saw her cry before—not when she worked on the battlefield or when she was a slave or during her time in the forest. Even as a child, she'd always felt that she somehow had something to prove by showing she was tougher and more resilient than others, and refused to shed tears over anything. She'd always kept it to herself.

But not this time. It all bubbled up inside of her and boiled over. Sorrow and anger and grief and pain all combined into a painful mess and came up in bitter tears. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed, breaking away from a surprised-looking Will as she hugged her legs up to her chest and cried into her knees. When he reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder, she didn't even feel the urge to push him away. Instead, she turned into him and cried into his chest, just as he'd done to her only moments before.

This time, Will comforted _her;_ he lifted her up and cradled her in his lap, wrapping his arms protectively around her and murmuring against her hair. She held onto him tightly, her arms around his chest and her hands gripping the loose clothing behind him. She felt like if she let him go, that something awful would happen to him and he would disappear and she would be all alone. That she would suffer the same loss as Robin.

It was uncomfortable. She hated crying—she felt like crying was showing incredible weakness that somebody would take advantage of her—but finally being able to cry for her friends and letting all of that painfully suppressed feeling out was such a relief that she couldn't find it in herself to be uncomfortable with crying.

He kissed her forehead, stroked her hair and her back. Those simple actions were soothing and reassuring and calming her down more than she'd imagine they would. The calm lasted only a few seconds before a fresh wave came over her and she began to sob again. He gathered her into his arms, placing one around her back and the other under her knees and carefully, gently lifting her up off the ground.

"What are you doing?" She asked between sobs and hiccups.

He said nothing—instead, he hefted her in his arms and nuzzled her cheek, continuing to carry her through the halls and rooms of the eerily quiet house. She tightened her arms around his neck and continued to cry quietly into his shoulder, which was now sporting an expanding puddle of damp from tears and spit. As he walked, he ignored everything around them, but she saw people as he passed them—Bassam's household staff, people that she'd known for most of her life, looked at her strangely as Will carried her by them and then looked away quickly, only to carefully watch her out of the corners of their eyes. It was probably astounding for them to see her like this, so uncharacteristically emotional and weeping like a little girl and being carried in the arms of the Englishman.

Their friends, too, saw them as they passed by. They had much the same reaction as the members of the household staff, doing a quick double-take before watching them carefully from the corners of their eyes and trying not to be so obvious about it. Robin cast a sideways glance at them with hollow eyes, then immediately looked away. Only Much, who had absolutely no sense of tact, blatantly stared at them.

She didn't even care about _this._ Normally she would have been embarrassed at having been seen in this state, but she couldn't even manage to care about it. She just snuggled closer to him and cried harder.

He made his way to the back hall and carried her up the stairs to the third floor, moving slowly and gracefully and being careful not to joggle her. He stopped at the top of the stairs and softly nudged her. She knew the silent question and sniffled into his shoulder.

"That way," she pointed ahead of him, directing him to her bedroom at the end of the upstairs hall. "Close the door behind you."

He obeyed her order, closing the door soundly behind them with a swift kick and leaving them alone together in the room. The drapes were drawn over the window screens to keep the heat and the sun out of the room, making the whole place suitably dark. He crossed the room in two steps and deposited her on the soft bed and pillows. As he moved to stand back up, she gripped his shirt around his shoulders to try to keep him close to her. When he tried to stand up, it caught him by surprise and he stumbled forward. He landed in a crumpled heap on the bed next to her as she caught him off-balance.

He must not have realized that she did it on purpose, because he went to stand up again; again, she kept a tight hold on him and prevented him from doing it. He looked at her, confusion written clearly in his face as he sat there next to him.

She clutched at his arm and buried her tearstained face in his shoulder, still sniffling and crying softly. She didn't want him to get up and go away. Didn't want him to be any more than a few inches away from her. If he left, or if he was out of her hands and away from her for more than a second, something would happen to him—she knew it. As long as she kept her hands on him, kept her arms around him and kept him close to her, and she could feel him breathing in her arms and hear his heart beating, he was still there and still alive and still safe and still with her.

"Please don't go," she whispered, pleadingly. She must have sounded absolutely piteous because he almost immediately nodded.

"Of course," he whispered back, gently and reassuringly. "I would never—"

She lunged forward, cutting him off as she hugged him around his shoulders and continued to sob into him, this time not taking care to be quiet. There was nobody up here to worry about drawing their attention—though even if there was she doubted she would care at this point—so she let herself sob as loudly as she cared. There was a great deal of nearly overwhelmingly powerful emotion inside of her, and now all she wanted to do was to let it out. He held her shivering body as she cried, his face buried in her neck as he, too, was once again overcome with sadness and began to cry himself.

It seemed that every time they felt like they'd calmed down and gathered themselves, the grief overtook them again and they just dissolved into tears. While Djaq had accepted the fact that it would be a very long time before any of them even _began_ to heal from their loss, she _had_ at least thought that they might be able to control themselves. And after the floodgates were opened, there was just no going back.

They stayed there, latched onto one another for dear life as they both wept. Just cried and cried, until she was completely worn out and she felt him, too, growing tired as he stopped crying and simply breathed heavily into her neck and slump against her. Eventually, her sobs and tremors subsided; her breathing evened out, into slow and deep breaths against the familiar scratchy wool of Will's old tunic. She had no idea how long they'd been like this, sobbing on one another, but it must have been a while, and by now she'd simply exhausted herself. She simply had no more energy left to expend. Even her tears had dried up. She just couldn't cry anymore.

Neither of them had any strength anymore. They held each other up, leaning on each other for support, afraid that if either of them moved, both of them would tumble to the ground in boneless heaps.

Impulsively, she leaned forward and pecked him on the cheek. She just wanted that littlest bit more contact between them—anything to prove to herself that he was still _alive,_ still _real._ She felt an intense galloping paranoia that she would blink and he would vanish and she would be all alone to mourn him. The fact that she had that fear at all frightened her almost more than the fear itself.

She felt him stiffen and go rigid against her lips, surprised at her action. When she did it again, he softened and sighed and tilted his head down to softly nuzzle her cheek. She kissed his neck this time, letting her mouth linger there against the gentle pulsing skin; he kissed her cheek and her temple and smoothed her hair back with one hand as he kept the other arm around her waist and held her close. He was warm and soft and comforting—his pulse underneath her lips reassuring her that he was alive.

She traced little kisses down his neck to his collar bones before coming back up and planting another kiss to his neck and ghosting her fingertips down the back of his neck, feeling the goosebumps raise in their path. Her other hand lay flat on his chest, feeling his heart beating rhythmically.

He stroked her cheek, sliding his fingers under her chin and tilting her head up to him and kissing her sweetly, tenderly. She returned the kiss and pulled him flush against her. She pressed her hand to his cheek and pulled him as close as she could with an arm around his neck.

More and more, closer and closer—that was all she wanted as she kissed him again and again, refusing to even break away from him to breathe. She decided that she would much rather suffocate than relinquish contact. It all came back to her desperate desire to be as close to him as humanly possible. To touch him and feel him and smell his scent and hear his breathing.

"I love you, Djaq," he rasped between kisses. "I love you—love you—"

She echoed him, repeating his words to him amid ever-more frantic kisses. She couldn't say it enough—couldn't hear it enough. Marian and Robin, each too proud and stubborn and tough, never said it enough, and now it was too late for them. Life was so uncomfortably, frighteningly uncertain, and she was not about to waste whatever time she had left; she wanted to tell him as much as possible, because something could…

Her breath caught in her throat, but she knew that she was just too emotionally exhausted to cry anymore. Instead, she kissed him arduously and wound her arms a little tighter around his neck.

With hesitating uncertainty, he leaned into her, pushed her back the tiniest bit. She didn't resist and let him slowly lower her back down into the pile of soft pillows and blankets on the bed. She kept her arms around him as she lay the rest of the way back, pulling him with her until he hovered over her.

She stroked her fingernails through his hair, along the sides of his head until she clasped them in the back and pulled his mouth closer to hers. Their kisses slowed from frantically desperate to long and languid, each kiss slow and sweet as they tried to make each one last as long as possible.

There was too much space left between them. Any air separating Will's body from hers was _too much._ But even pulling him down to her and closing that distance between them wasn't enough. Not enough contact. Even in her desert homeland, they all still wore the clothing they had left England wearing—rough linens and heavy wools that were too hot for the climate and too thick to allow any decent contact between them while they were in the way. She couldn't feel him, couldn't touch him through the clothes. They were in the way. So they had to go.

She pawed at his clothing, immediately forgetting how to negotiate the various ties and knots keeping his clothes in place; the only thing she could do was to slide her hands down the back of his shirt and gently scrape his back with her fingernails. Quickly, instinctively, he pulled away from her to drag his tunic off and began to remove his shirt.

And then he paused and looked questioningly at her, silently asking for permission to keep going. They had done this countless times and she knew that he knew what she wanted him to do, but he might well have been uncertain of his own interpretation of her silent signals and untrusting of himself. Instead of answering, she pulled her shirt up over her head and shrugged out of it. There was a brief pause as he looked at her, his gaze soft, and bent low to kiss her again. Then there was a renewed frenzy and a rush as he pulled the rest of his clothing off and she carefully wriggled out of her own.

In the next instant they were bare, pressed into one another, skin on skin, arms and legs entangled; she pressed warm kisses to his lips and cheeks and neck as he did the same to her. No matter how much they kissed and no matter how close they were, she wanted more, craved more contact, wanted to be closer to him. She wanted every inch of his body pressed onto every inch of her body. Being this close together was the only way she could be reasonably certain that he was real, and she desperately wanted that assurance. The irrationally intense fear that he might suddenly disappear into thin air was still very prevalent in her mind. She couldn't shake it.

And so she wanted him even closer.

She tightened her arms around his shoulders and snugly hugged him around the hips with her legs. His body was warm and sturdy and familiar against hers, and she clutched him tight, wishing that she could just absorb him into her own flesh and crush his body into hers. More, more—closer!

His heart thudded wildly in his chest, pressed firmly against hers. His skin was beginning to go damp and sticky with sweat. He was breathing against her lips and her cheeks, heavily and hotly between kisses. He was quivering, or maybe _she_ was the one who was shaking. He kept his movements slow and steady and rhythmic.

She pressed warm kisses to his neck; his lips found hers again, kissing her deeply and passionately and sucking the very breath from her body with every caress until she was limp and boneless beneath him. He was trying to communicate his love for her as thoroughly as possible, with every movement and kiss and gentle touch.

He guided himself to her, swift and easily. There was no crackling tension, no moment of release as he entered her. This wasn't about the sex; they both knew that. They just wanted to be close to one another, to touch one another—to smell each of their unique scents and hear their coupled breathing and feel their coupled racing pulses.

Their breathing grew ragged and frantic, their hands grasping at one another. They ground their hips into each other's in that familiar rhythm. _Each other_ was the only thing that was familiar now. The only thing that made sense anymore was _this—_warm bodies, warm hands, sweet kisses.

He was being as gentle as possible, exploring the familiar curves of her body with his roughly callused hands on her stomach and hips and waist and breasts. It made her shiver as he ground his pelvis into hers in deep thrusts—but even those movements were careful and tender, taking care not to be rough with her this time. He brought his hands back up to her face and cupped her cheek and kissed her again. The kiss was more exhilarating than any previous, moreso even than their lovemaking and his caresses on her body. She gripped the hair at the nape of his neck to keep him in place there at her lips.

She began whispering, at first so low that it was barely audible even to her own ears over Will's heavy panting and her own wildly pounding heartbeat. The whispers grew louder, the words spilling from her lips.

"I love—you. Love you…" she repeated around their ever-more impassioned kisses. He repeated them to her, garbling them and mixing up the words, but Djaq had never heard anything more beautiful or sweet than those very words.

"Djaq…" he sighed her name. "Djaq—!"

He gasped, and then released his breath in a long, low, rumbling sigh as he thrust into her one last time and stayed there, his arms giving out under him as he crumbled into her. Their hips were tightly knit together, their bodies flush against each other and their legs a tangle; his face was buried in her neck and shoulder as he caught his breath while she stroked his hair and forehead.

They stayed that way for a long, long time, silently absorbed in one another. There were no words that they could use in either of their native tongues that would do anything but shatter their peace.

She didn't know or care how much time had passed—hours, probably—but they didn't move or speak or fall asleep. They didn't even move to pull the blankets up to cover themselves and shield themselves from the cool night air or potential discovery by somebody unwary.

They were _there._ Twice they had faced death, and twice they had cheated it and come away alive when by all rights they should have been dead. Now all either wanted to do was to stay in the bed and bask in each other's warmth, in their long deep breathing and pounding hearts and gentle shivers and in the reassurance that they were both still very much _alive._

o…o

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So much for a fluffy story. This became quite decidedly serious! I hate writing sad stories, but I'm told I'm good at it. This story is also going to end soon, I'm afraid—I hadn't planned to make it such a long one to begin with, so I'd like to draw it to a close sooner rather than later. Do leave a review if you feel like it—feedback is always appreciated, but not demanded.


	11. Eleven

Well, the presence of the plot, the fatal flaw in this intended one-shot smutfic, has finally run to a stop here. The last chapter has come, at last. I hope you enjoy reading it, as always.

Disclaimer: I don't own Robin Hood or any of the characters therein. Shame, isn't it?

0…0…0…0…0

o…o

Days gone. How many? She had absolutely no idea. She felt strangely disconnected from the whole world. They could have been in that house for two days, or they could very well have been there for two _months._ Or a year for all she could tell. She just didn't have any perception of time. Or much of anything else, really. None of them had.

She thought they might all sooner or later come out of this haze and regain some semblance of normalcy, but they were all just as horribly distracted by their grief and almost completely detached from each other and the whole world.

Will was sleeping with her in her bed now, but everybody politely looked away and pretended not to notice. There was no reason for anybody to look away, though, since all they were doing was sleeping in that bed—the last time they had done anything physical was several nights ago, the night she broke down in his arms and wept. They found that it was far more comforting to just be there next to each other, holding each other, than it was to take it any further than that.

But even with that physical closeness between them, they were still bizarrely disconnected from one another. Sometimes it was like the other was just a warm body, and not much else. She didn't mind it from him—they were all still in mourning for their friends and probably wouldn't be back on solid ground again for a while—and he didn't seem to mind it from her. She was mostly quiet and kept to herself, and she was more than happy to let him think that it was for the same reasons he did.

Except that it wasn't.

Over the last week since arriving in Acre and coming to Bassam's home, she'd been giving this a great deal of thought. She kept changing her mind, weighing the pros and cons and analyzing the possible decisions, and going back and forth on the issue so many times that she couldn't remember what her initial decision had been.

She called Bassam her 'uncle', even though he wasn't actually related to her. He was a friend of her mother's only brother, but he was close to their little broken family while she was growing up, so close that the lack of blood relation never even mattered. He loved her and her brother as his niece and nephew—almost as if they were his own _children,_ the children he never had—and they both loved him back just as much. Even though it was disrespectful to her deceased father to say or even to think such a thing, she believed she even loved him more than she loved her own father. She had more fond memories of him than of her father.

Bassam and his wife had positively doted on the two of them, spoiled them at any opportunity, and were always glad to open their home and their hearts to them whenever they wanted or needed it. He was a kind and generous man.

And when her father died, leaving two young, motherless children orphaned in a war-torn country, the man took them in. He loved them and cared for them and provided for them as if they were his own flesh and blood. He took care of them—took care of _her—_even though he was under no obligation to do so.

She owed him… _everything_ for his kindness. Her _life._

And what had she done to repay him? She left. She selfishly ran away after her brother died and let Bassam and his wife and all of the people that had loved her and cared for her for so many years believe that she was dead. Finding her name on the ceiling in the hall had been a shock. Those names were all the names of people in the family who had died; her father's name was up there, as was Djaq's name. It meant he thought of them as family. But to see her _own_ name up there meant that he truly believed her dead. How terrible must that have been for him? To live for so long without knowing where she was or what had happened to her, but knowing that she was probably dead?

She had never wished that on them, never in a thousand years. It had just… happened. She couldn't think of the actual reason for her flight from Acre so many years ago—she doubted she could have told anybody the reasons _then._ Half-mad with anger and grief at the death of her twin and at the world as a whole, it seemed the best idea at the time.

It was childish to run away, and selfish, and cruel. And where had it gotten her? Captured and sold like cattle, first forced to apply her skill in medicine to the injuries of the battlefield, and then sold as a work mule into England. The situation, entirely by chance, didn't end up being so terribly bad after that. But only for her. For Bassam and the people who loved her, it was hell, not knowing what had become of their beloved young Safiyyah—the spirited and clever girl with the long plaits and the big black eyes.

And then she'd turned up at his house, and Bassam's only outward reaction had been a surprised declaration of, "You're _alive!"_ and a welcoming hug, but she knew that inside he was conflicted and shocked and relieved to find that Safiyyah was't dead like he had feared for so long. After all, for so many years he'd thought she was gone for good, and to see her here was akin to seeing a ghost. A small part of her was honestly surprised his old heart didn't give out right then and there. And, once again, he'd opened his home not only to her, but also to her and her motley crew of dirty, smelly, weary Englishmen without a second's hesitation. Perfect strangers.

He even agreed to show them where the King's encampment was.

The more she thought about it, the more Djaq realized that she knew what she had to do. She owed this man _everything._ She couldn't leave—not again. To abandon him a second time would be too cruel.

She had to stay here, she realized. Not forever, but certainly long enough to repay Bassam for the myriad kindnesses he'd showed her over the years and offer him some kind of explanation for her abandonment and to tell her story. She owed him that much, at the very least.

Her heart weighed heavily in her chest. She knew what had to be done, but that didn't make it any easier knowing that in a few days, the gang would be heading for the docks at Acre and boarding the first ship towards England and that she wouldn't be going with them.

That she wouldn't be going with _Will._

She sniffled quietly to herself and rubbed a dirty shirtsleeve over her damp cheek. It probably left a streak of scum across her face, but she didn't care. She was agonizing over how to tell her friends of her rather abrupt and seemingly warrantless—warrantless to _them_—decision. It would probably put her on the same level of contempt among her friends as Allan for his betrayal. After all, that's what this was, wasn't it? A betrayal. The group needed each other and needed _her_ more than ever now. Their little family needed to stay together and needed the mutual support.

But Bassam needed her, too, and she had to do the right thing by him. He was growing older and he had no heirs; he had suffered for such a long time, not knowing what had happened to her. At the very least, when she stayed here in Acre her friends would know where she was, and that she was alive and safe.

How could she explain this to them, though? Moreover, how would she explain this to _Will?_ After her insistence only days before that this place and this house was _not_ her home anymore and arguing with him that she didn't belong here any longer, he might be disinclined to believe her reasons for deciding to stay here.

No, Will was trusting. He would believe her and accept her reasons, she was sure, but she knew he wouldn't be happy about it. She could just imagine him there, standing before her and looking sadly and forlornly at her with those too-beautiful green eyes. That thought alone was enough to make her change her mind; but she knew she had to do this, and there was absolutely _no_ backing out.

But _how_ was she supposed to tell him? How was she supposed to tell _all_ of them?

One day, she would return to England and be with them again; of that she was sure. But she had to stay here, at least for a while. How long that 'a while' would be, she had no idea. She also knew that her friends wouldn't take 'one day' as a viable answer to the question of her return.

Her best option, she decided, was simply to tell them; but she would tell Will first, in private and alone and away from the rest of the rest of their friends. He deserved to know first. Or second—after she told Bassam of her intention to stay with him.

It was going to be the hardest and most heart-wrenching thing that she had ever had to do, but she _had_ to do it.

"Will?" She asked him gently, even the low and soft tone of her voice startling him out of his dazed trance. He slowly looked up at her from his sitting position on the low ledge. He looked at her blankly for several seconds, like he was trying to figure out who, exactly, he was staring at. She waited for the glimmer of recognition in his eyes before she spoke again. "Could I speak with you, please?"

"What's wrong?"

"I need…" she fidgeted uncertainly and looked down at her feet. "I need to tell you something. It is important."

"What is it?" He prodded again, his eyes suddenly worried.

"Come with me," she said, taking his hand and leading him into a dark and unoccupied corridor, where they could be alone and she could break the news to him. She wanted this to be as private as possible.

"You're starting to worry me," he said. "What's going on? Is something wrong?"

She could feel her heart beating wildly and feel the blood rush in her head; she felt dizzy all of a sudden, too. Her throat constricted, as if forbidding her from speaking those words.

"I do not… know how to say this," she whispered. Then she sniffled, the familiarly painful lump beginning to rise in her throat. He reached out to put his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged him off. He frowned, but said nothing. She continued. "I cannot come back to England with you. I am… I have decided to stay here."

His eyes went wide and his mouth opened ever so slightly in shock. For several long, _long_ seconds, he said nothing. It was like he was trying to recover the ability to speak.

His voice cracked as he spoke. "W—what?"

She thought to repeat herself, but she knew that he didn't want to hear it again. The look of utter shock and sadness on his face was enough to break her heart.

"Will… oh, Will…" she breathed, feeling her chest fall and her heart break. "I am so sorry."

His cheeks were turning white. He continued to stare at her, wide-eyed, but his face was otherwise unreadable. She could feel the blood draining out of her own face and her heart pounded so ferociously that she feared it might burst from her chest; she stood there at arm's length from him, waiting for him to say something—_anything—_but he remained silent. That silence made her so nervous. They were usually so comfortable and at ease together with silence, but this was heavy, stifling, and unnatural. It made her feel uncomfortable. To busy her hands, she tugged at the hem of her shawl where it was starting to grow ragged from continual wear.

Silence. Deafening silence.

She was caught between wanting to recoil from his intense stare and wanting to run into his arms and cry. Of course, there was no guarantee that if she _did_ run into his arms that he wouldn't push her away. She couldn't blame him if he did.

He turned away and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Are you going to say anything?" Her own voice was uncharacteristically timid.

"What's there to say?" He said flippantly. "You're a grown woman, and you've made your choice, haven't you? I know you—once you've made your mind up about something, there's no changing it. I know you wouldn't have taken a decision like this lightly."

"Will—"

"Could you at least tell me why?"

She sighed. "When I left here, I did not just leave. I ran away. I left Bassam and I left all of the people who had cared for me. I cannot do that to him, not again."

"What about us? Don't we matter? _We're_ your friends, _we_ care about you." He paused. "What about—what about _me?"_

"You will know where I am. Nobody here knew what had happened to me. He thought I was dead."

"That's why you're staying, then? Guilt?"

Another sigh. "Not only that. He brought me up, he took me in when my father died. He did not have to—my brother and I were not his real niece and nephew—but he took us in and took care of us. I owe Bassam so much—"

"You don't owe anybody _anything,"_ he said sternly.

"Call it a sense of honour."

"So this is it, then, is it?"

She didn't answer him. She couldn't. There was nothing she could possibly say to him to help set things right. That's what it sounded like, wasn't it? That she was leaving him.

"It will not be forever," she offered, hoping somehow it would help. "I _will_ come back to England."

He perked up and his eyes brightened the tiniest bit. "Really?"

Nod. "I promise."

"When?"

"What?"

"When will you come back?"

"I do not… I do not know."

"Please, tell me—I have to know."

"Someday."

"'Someday'?" He repeated. "Is that all you can tell me?"

"Yes."

"You can't give me anything more specific than that?"

She swallowed the big lump in her throat and looked down, shaking her head. She couldn't look him in the eye.

"I don't care how long you're gone just as long as I know when you're coming back," he continued, a pleading tone coming into his voice. "Tell me, please. Anything. Six months? A year? Five years? Ten? I don't care how long I'd have to wait, as long as I knew when I could stop waiting."

"I do not know," she said. "The best I can offer is… someday. But I _will_ come back to England. I will see you again—I swear it."

He was quiet again, looking at her with those impossibly sad eyes.

"Well then," he said. "I guess there's only one thing for me to do."

Pause.

She couldn't even begin to guess what he was thinking.

"I'm staying here with you."

It took a second or two for her brain to fully comprehend what he'd just said. "You _what?"_

"I'm staying, too."

She blinked. What on earth was he _thinking?_ As much as she didn't belong in this place, certainly _Will_ didn't belong here in Acre. His home was in England. He couldn't stay here—it just wouldn't be right. Did he realize what he was saying? That he would give up his home, his family, his friends, and the only life he'd ever known in England to stay in a strange house with a stranger in a foreign country, where he didn't even speak the language, for an indefinite period of time.

He was so young, she realized once again. She didn't know exactly how old he was—she doubted that even _he_ knew exactly how old he was—but he was quite young and little more than a boy. He was hot-headed and inexperienced and he could be impulsive. That was what he was being now—impulsive. He probably didn't even realize what he was agreeing to do.

"You can't do that," she told him.

"Yes I can. Why not?"

"Because you do not belong here!"

"Neither do you—you said so yourself, you've changed since you left here. If both of us don't belong here, maybe it'll be a bit easier than if it was just you here all by yourself."

"Please, Will—be reasonable."

"Only if you will. Why can't I stay?"

"Because it just…" she trailed off, unable to come up with anything to follow. She wanted to try to convince him that this was a bad idea, that this was the wrong thing for him to do—even as there was a part of her that selfishly wanted to leap for joy that he wanted to stay with her in Acre. "What about England? The gang? What of Robin, and Allan? Or… or even Luke?"

She expected him to stop and think about it, but his immediate response was surprising.

"What about them?"

Her eyes widened. "Could you live without them?" She asked. "Could you go on, day after day, knowing how far away they are? That you cannot even see them or talk to them for an indefinite period of time?"

"I've gotten used to not seeing my brother since joining the gang," he said. "I know where he is, and I know he's safe. The rest of them, well… I'm sure they'll manage. Allan is tough, and Robin…" he trailed off here, like he was having second thoughts. "I think maybe it would be best if neither of us were about to pine and remind him of… you know."

"But they are your _family—"_

"Yours, too."

"Yes, but—"

"Djaq."

The sound of her name, so soft and sad and pleading, made her immediately shut her mouth and look at him.

"I _love_ you," he told her, reaching out to place his hand on her cheek. "I couldn't live without you, so far from you, not knowing when I'll ever see you again."

She took a few shaky breaths. She wanted so badly to refuse him, to argue with him some more and try to persuade him _not_ to stay here. She wanted to tell him how wrong it was for him, how hard it would be for him to live here; she wanted to tell him about the brutally hot summers and the constant news of fighting, the town changing hands from Saracen to European and back again, or about how he might not be accepted by her countrymen for being English, just to put him off the idea. It was all wrong for him—staying in Acre was barely the right thing for _her._

But she couldn't make the words come. Her voice just didn't work.

"You said we'd come back to England someday. And 'someday' works fine for me, as long as I have you."

Her resolve began to falter. Her heart so badly wanted to stop the argument here and agree to let him stay here with her; her mind kept screaming at her that this was the wrong thing for him, no matter how much she wanted for him to stay by her side.

Her bottom lip quivered and her vision began to go blurry with tears that welled up in her eyes. She swallowed hard and opened her mouth, but again her voice failed her and she couldn't form any words.

"Besides," he gave a little lopsided half-smile as he spoke. "I asked you to marry me. That's sort of like a promise, isn't it?"

There was no way she could keep telling him he couldn't stay—not when he'd made his own mind up. She had to respect his decision like he'd respected hers. His words and that sweetly crooked smile melted her heart and her resolve crumbled; the rational part of her mind quieted and she allowed herself to feel almost overwhelmingly happy that he was going to stay and that she wouldn't have to separate from him. She stepped over to him and wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. He hugged her back, folded his arms around her, held her close.

"Does this mean I can stay?"

All she could do was nod and sniffle and hug him even tighter.

"Good," he whispered.

The next person informed of her—of_ their_—decision to stay in Acre was Bassam. They should probably have told their friends first, as a matter of respect to them, but they hadn't even told her adoptive uncle of their intention to stay, nor had they asked his permission to do so. It would be terrible to sadden their friends with the news that they were staying, only to take the decision to Bassam and have him, for whatever reason, refuse to let them stay. Telling him would have to come before telling their friends.

She decided that it was best if she did this alone; she found him in his study and approached him cautiously, and apologized profusely to him for everything she'd put him through over the years. Then she dropped to her knees in front of him and begged for his forgiveness for being selfish and childish and running away when he'd done so much for her, and for worrying him so and letting him and everybody else think that she had died. Then when she told him that she was going to do whatever it took to make up for her wrongdoing, he actually looked surprised.

"Safiyyah," he murmured, tilting her chin up and looking at her with those kind old eyes under greying eyebrows.

The name hardly sounded right—she had been 'Djaq' for so long that hearing her _true_ name used to address her felt somehow wrong.

"Safiyyah, stop this nonsense. You don't need to 'make up for' anything. The past is the past—you did what you did a long time ago. There is no sense in upsetting yourself over wanting to fix something that can never be changed."

"But—"

"Stand up, Safiyyah," he said, pulling her up by the shoulders. "Don't kneel. Sit down."

Numbly, she obeyed, getting up off the floor and taking a chair to sit opposite him. Once she was seated, he continued.

"It is true that when you left I feared you had died. I didn't know what had happened to you—to be able to see you again is more than I ever could have hoped for. Allah sent you to me to show me that you were alive and well and safe and happy."

The smile he gave her was a weak and half-hearted one. She knew—and she suspected that he _knew_ she knew—that her absence had hurt him. The years since she left had been hard on him and on his wife. At least if she had _died,_ they could have had a funeral and buried her and let her go; but this way, they had no way of knowing whether she was alive or dead, and eventually they just gave her up for dead without the closure that came with having a body. She would feel guilty for the rest of her life over this, and she was surprised that he seemed not to feel even a hint of anger at her.

"You are not angry?" She asked cautiously.

He shook his head and smiled gently, this one full and more genuine. "I am too relieved to be angry. I love you as my own, my dear. Anger is useless, and would take away from whatever time there is left before you leave and go back to England."

She bit her lower lip and looked at her hands, clenching the fabric of her shawl in her lap. "That is what I wanted to talk to you about," she said softly.

"Oh?" He leaned back in his chair with his hands folded over his round belly, watching her carefully from his seat. Part of her wondered if he didn't already _know_ what she was going to tell him.

"I have decided—I would like to stay here, to make up for what I have done, and for the grief you suffered. There is no excuse for what I did to you, but I think maybe it might help to stay here with you. It would… make _me_ feel better about it."

"You wish to stay?"

"Yes. If you will have me."

Silence. He sat there, his hands still clasped together over his stomach and his expression unreadable.

She looked up cautiously and swallowed hard. "Please?" She whimpered. She felt so unlike herself, pleading like this. But it was up to him, and all she could do was to wait for his answer. Would he refuse? She hadn't expected he would, but if he _did_ it wouldn't surprise her. He was well within his rights to do so; it was, after all, his house. She could hardly blame him after she'd all but abandoned him when she ran away, and then come back quite suddenly years later for apparently no other reason than to ask him to give shelter to a lot of strange, dirty Englishmen.

Regardless of his answer, she still loved him.

Bassam stared and stared. It was uncomfortable, and she fidgeted slightly in her seat under his gaze.

Suddenly, he leaped up from his chair and swept her up in a bone-crushing hug. She gasped, at first surprised, and then hugged him back.

"Safiyyah," he murmured. "This truly is a blessing. You are welcome to stay here—to come home. You needn't think you have to make anything up to us. That is not necessary. You are my niece, Safiyyah."

Djaq rubbed her head against his shoulder and tightened her arms around his barrel chest. She tried to squeak out the words 'thank you', but she couldn't manage the words. Even though she must have hurt him so by running away, he harboured no ill feelings toward her, still thought of her as family.

"But my dear… what of your Englishman? The lanky one?"

He meant Will.

"I thought—would you leave him behind?" He voiced the question with a certain seriousness. After just the week that they'd been here, he knew what Will meant to her—and Bassam knew _her_ well enough to know that she wouldn't take such things lightly.

"He wants to stay, as well."

To her surprise, he smiled warmly, his eyes crinkling with mirth as the corners of his mouth curled right up into his cheeks.

"Then he, too, is welcome here. I should hate to think of you so heartbroken because you are away from him."

Her eyebrows climbed her forehead. She hadn't expected that he would accept this so readily. "Really? You do not object?"

He shook his head. "He means a great deal to you. What sort of family would I be if I would not accept him?"

Her lower lip quivered and she very nearly felt the urge to cry again. But that irritatingly analytical part of her mind—the part that watched people carefully and took in every word and action and change in tone and analyzed it to decipher the hidden subtext—knew what he was really thinking. He was willing to do just about anything to keep her happy, and thus keep her in Acre. It was most likely both her uncle's generosity _and,_ to some degree, his desire for her to stay in Acre that made him agree to let Will live in his house.

A combination of relief and guilt washed over her. He might well have expected that she would return and stay here forever; the fact that she might wish to leave Acre again didn't occur to him. Why should it? A life of privilege and comfort awaited her here.

She hadn't the heart to tell him that this wasn't going to be permanent, and that she would, one day, leave again. Another time, perhaps. For now, she was just glad that he was, once again, opening his home to her.

"Thank you."

o…o

"You're doing _what?"_

Much's eyes were narrowed, his eyebrows knit, and his mouth screwed up into a thin, tight line as he glared at them. His balled fists were at his sides, his stance solid and menacing for all that he was a small man. He was looking at them as if they'd just announced their intention to join the Sherriff. The world to Much was black and white—good and bad, right and wrong, decent and evil. No shades of gray. What she intended on doing was treason in his eyes, pure and simple.

From the window seat across from them, Allan looked up with a shocked expression. Big blue eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open. He was speechless at her announcement that she was staying in Acre. The news absolutely shocked him.

"What? Wh—why? _What?"_ He repeated himself over and over again, stuttering as he tried to figure out what was going on.

John, in contrast, stood steady and quiet before them, his bulky arms crossed over his broad chest and his expression completely unreadable behind his bushy peppered beard and long hair. He was waiting for one of them to continue or explain, but would make no effort to coax an explanation from either of them.

Only Robin wasn't around to hear the news; she had wanted to tell everybody at once, but he'd gone off at dawn to visit Marian's grave, and he probably wouldn't come back until late tonight. They would have to tell him later.

Will stood at her back, silent support with a hand on her shoulder. He was watching Much warily from his position, as if he feared that he might lunge at them and attack them for their perceived betrayal of the group.

"I am staying here," she repeated herself firmly.

"But—but—but—" Much sputtered angrily, his face reddening.

"_Why?"_ Allan finished for him.

She sighed. "I do not expect you will accept my reasons, but… I feel as though I owe Bassam for all that he has done for me. He did so much, and I repaid him by running away."

"That's just like you," Allan sighed. "So very honourable."

John only grunted in response, and said nothing.

"That's a stupid reason."

"You may think that you wish, but my mind is made up," she said. Behind her, Will's gentle hand squeezed her shoulder.

"No talkin' you out of it, eh?" Allan asked.

"No."

Much was still fuming. "I can't _believe_ you!"

"I am sorry—"

He looked up at the young man standing behind her. "What about him? What about Will? Are you just going to leave him and stay here all alone?"

There was a brief silence—she didn't know whether or not he wanted to tell them himself, or if she should do it. He stroked his thumb back and forth on her clothed shoulder before he spoke.

"I'm staying, too, Much."

His face turned pale and his mouth opened and closed repeatedly like a fish out of water. Uncontrollable shock and rage passed over his face rapidly and he actually began to tremble. It was… _scary._

The colour flooded back into his face quite suddenly, turning from white to _enraged_ red quickly. "How could you _do this_ to us?" He trilled. His voice was unnaturally high.

"It won't be forever," he tried to reassure. "We'll come back someday—"

"That doesn't make a difference! You're still leaving!"

"Hey, relax—" Allan began, concerned for all of their safety.

"_You be quiet!"_ He shrieked. "Traitors have no business defending traitors!"

"It is not betrayal," she said gently. She remained calm, although she was beginning to wonder if she should put something between Much and herself, lest he become so enraged that he exploded into a thousand shards of bone.

"What do you call it, then? You're leaving us when we need you the most! When _Robin_ needs you the most! I thought we were supposed to be a team—we are Robin Hood, remember? Or doesn't that matter to you anymore since you have _each other_ now?"

He continued to rant, pacing back and forth and angrily hissing about their betrayal and their selfishness—the _nerve_ they had, staying here to live in luxury and peace while they went back to England, three men short after their voyage to Acre, to fight the Sherriff and Gisbourne. And what of Robin? He needed all the support and family he could get! It was just pouring salt in his wounds for them to stay in Acre together!

He went through his grievances once and then began to repeat himself, still pacing and throwing his hands in the air. All they could do was stare at him in astonishment, not sure what to do or say, and so doing nothing.

Finally, John strode over to him and grabbed him by the collar of his doublet, heaving him to his side and effectively stopping him.

"Stop that!" He growled. "Be quiet, you."

"But—!"

"'But' nothing. They have made their decision and it's none of our business. You aren't making it any easier on them by yelling."

He struggled mightily against the larger man, to no avail. "It shouldn't _be_ easy!"

John grabbed him roughly actually _lifted him up_ a few inches off the ground, and rattled him soundly like a dog shaking a rat. The smaller man stilled, and he put him down. "Come with me," he said, turning to drag him out of the room. "We need to talk."

He must have waited until they were out of earshot before saying whatever it was he wanted to say to Much, because all three of them strained to hear the exchange, but there was nothing to hear. She was rather hoping to hear John talk—or _beat—_some sense into their friend. He was being absolutely ridiculous about the whole thing.

Allan slid off of the windowsill where he'd been sitting and walked over to them, fiddling with the edges of his ragged tunic. He looked the same as he always did, having long discarded the higher-quality black trousers and the padded leather jerkin he'd worn during his service with Gisbourne. He took them off at some point during their time on the ship and, for all they knew, threw the garments overboard.

"So…"

Pause.

"Yes?" She prodded.

"This mean you're getting married?" He asked.

"Eventually, yes."

"Well, it's a shame I won't be able to come to your wedding."

Another pause. He shuffled his feet on the ground, suddenly fascinated by the floor tiles. He lifted his head and looked at them, so piteously sad. Those eyes couldn't _possibly_ get any bigger.

"I'm gonna miss you."

"We'll miss you, too," Will said.

"I don't—I don't know how to say this…" he said softly.

Djaq didn't even have the time to ask what before her friend had lunged forward and swept both of them up in a tight hug, one arm around either of them and his head between them against their shoulders. After a brief moment's shock, they both hugged him back.

"I dunno what I'll do without you," he sniffled. "I… I love you both. Really, I do. You two made it bearable—you're the only ones who still like me, even after what I did."

Sniffle.

"And now you're leaving."

"We're coming back," Will tried to assure him.

"D'you mean that?"

Nod. "Djaq promised me, and now I'm promising you. We'll be back, someday."

"Someday, eh? That's better than never." He gave a weak and half-hearted little smile, but the familiar roguish glint was still there behind his tearing blue eyes.

Djaq hugged him and patted his back gently. His grip was tight and he was starting to squash her, but she didn't wriggle away. Instead, she stroked his hair soothingly and murmured gently to him like a frightened child.

Finally, he stepped back and turned away from them, but not before she saw him bring a hand up to wipe his eyes. He turned back again with a wobbly, weak smile.

"Much said there's a ship leaving out of the port tomorrow for France," he said absently. "From there we're going over land to Normandy, then… home."

Pause. Sniffle.

"I guess this is goodbye, then."

"It is not forever, Allan," she said.

"I know. But that doesn't mean I won't miss you. A _lot._ It'll be hard living there again without you, after everything that's happened. 'Least if you were there, I'd have somebody to talk to who didn't hate me."

"They don't _hate_ you."

"'Course they do." Sigh. "Can't say I blame 'em, though."

"Stop saying that," Will scolded. "They may be angry, but they don't hate you. They need you, you know, especially now."

While they argued back and forth, Djaq stood quietly to the side, chewing on her lower lip in deep thought. Maybe…

"Come with me," she interrupted their argument as a thought occurred to her. They stopped talking and looked up at her questioningly. "I have an idea," she said. She beckoned them with a hand as she walked to the curtained-off door at the end of the room.

Will and Allan looked at each other briefly with shared confusion, then shrugged and followed her obediently. They tried their best to keep up with her as she navigated her way through the labyrinthine halls and rooms of the grand house with the expert ease of practice. They wove back and forth around furniture and people standing in the way, excusing themselves when they barged past some rather surprised-looking servants.

"Pardon us—'scuze us!"

"Sorry about that. Sorry."

"Excuse us!"

Part of her was actually surprised that she still knew how to navigate this house as easily as she did. It had been so long—she thought she might have forgotten. But it all came back to her easily and she was operating almost on instinct to get around.

She was hardly paying attention as she led them to her intended destination in the big, wide-open end room that was her uncle's aviary, where she stopped on the stair in the wide doorway. Behind her, Will stopped short to avoid running into her; Allan walked right into him, making them both stumble forward. She heard them start to argue behind her.

"Watch where you're going!"

"I'm sorry, you stopped short!"

She ignored them and went for the little pigeon cubbies in the wall. She would have to pick a small bird, someone who could be quick. England to Acre was a long way—a smaller bird could make the journey much faster. She walked idly along the walls until she picked a pair that she liked and knelt to see them. The two pudgy gray birds inside stared at her over their little white beaks as she reached inside. They cooed softly at her.

"I am sorry," she whispered softly, barely audible, as she picked up the male bird and removed him. His mate squabbled in protest, fluttering her wings wildly and squawking and ramming her little body against the wire cage door in anger at being separated from her mate. She held the bird in her hands as gently as she could as he, too, struggled against her and tried to free himself to get back to the cage.

She'd done this countless times before—separating pigeons from their mates to send them somewhere far away, so that they could be used to send messages. And this was the usual reaction: a struggle to get away and get back to their mate. She never thought anything of it before now. But as she stood there holding the squalling bird in her hands and watching the other throw a fit over being separated, she felt a pang in her chest. It suddenly had far more meaning to her now than it ever did before. Separating mates felt so wrong. How would she feel, she wondered absently as the beak pecked feverishly at her hand in an effort to get her to let go, if the hand of something much bigger reached down and picked her up and took her away from Will?

It seemed so cruel, now that she thought of it.

After several moments, the bird in her hand stopped struggling as he tired himself out and realized that his fight was useless and resigned himself to his fate. She felt for them, enough that she contemplated putting him back and letting the birds be together again.

"I wish there was another way," she sighed, placing the pigeon into a little square basket-cage and closing the latch. "You will see her again someday. I promise."

"What're you doing?" Allan asked as the two men came up behind her.

She stood up and took the basket in her hands; she handed it to him and he hesitated before he reached out and took it from her.

"A bird?"

"In case you ever need to get word to us. It is the fastest way to do it." She knew her smile was weak and shaky.

He looked at her, and then down at the wicker cage, and then back at her again. "I, um… I can't read. Or write."

He sounded ashamed to admit this to her—Allan never sounded ashamed of _anything._

"You can find somebody who does," she said. "You will find a way, I am sure. You are a clever man—you should not think you cannot get word to us if you need to."

Will was smiling behind him, his gaze gentle and warm, and nodded shortly in approval at her improvised plan.

"You really mean that?"

"Of course I do." She cuffed him playfully on the back of the head. "You cannot expect to be rid of us so easily."

o…o

They were gone.

They left that morning for the port where the ships would be leaving. Bassam sent them on their way with supplies and clean clothes and a few shiny trinkets and coins to use to barter with the captain for passage. They told Robin—who had been missing since then—of their intention. But he'd already guessed that they were staying behind. That didn't surprise her. Of course he would guess. And if anybody had noticed the pigeon cage that Allan carried off of one shoulder, they ignored it and said nothing about it.

For the first time since her arrival in Nottingham so long ago, she felt completely different from the group. The clothes she wore felt alien on her now, the long tunic restrictive when compared with the short shirt and trousers she had been wearing. Cuffed bracelet on her wrist and earrings in her newly re-pierced ears and sandals on her feet—it was the clothing of her homeland, and yet she'd never felt quite so awkward and unsure.

Will looked different, too. An Englishman in Saracen dress. He _looked_ like he felt awkward in these clothes, but he would put up with it and do it, all for her. He'd been thoroughly—and _reluctantly—_washed andscrubbed at the orders of her uncle's household staff, the first bath he'd had in a very, very long time. He looked even paler than usual without his old protective layer of scum and he didn't even smell like himself anymore.

They'd bid their last sad farewells and hugged them for the last time.

And then their friends left then for the port. Neither she nor Will could bring themselves to go with them and watch them board the ship and leave for good; instead they stood at the covered end of the courtyard and watched as they retreated into the city beyond. They stayed where they were and kept their eyes on the crowds for a long, long time until the rest of the gang must have been halfway to the port by then.

She felt her lower lip quiver as she realized that they were gone—well and truly gone for good—and she sniffled quietly. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She reached up a hand to wipe the tears away and touched her cheek before she remembered the makeup she wore now. She shouldn't smudge it. She was Safiyyah again, and such things weren't ladylike. Another sniffle, and then she decided that she didn't care about it and lifted the edge of her tunic to wipe the paints from her eyes and the tears from her face, heedless of the quality or expense of the material.

"This is it then," he croaked.

"I suppose so."

They both sniffled quietly. Djaq was still using her tunic for a hanky and not caring who noticed. Will was hesitant to wipe his teary eyes.

"You can use your sleeve. Nobody cares. Or mine, if you would prefer."

A short laugh burst from his lips, but it was strangled and wet and it melted into a sob. He pulled his sleeve over his hand and wiped his eyes.

The day went on from there quite slowly. They felt at loose ends without the rest of the gang. How had they ever lived without them? What did they do before they joined Robin and his cause? Was there _ever_ a time when they weren't on some mission or other with him, feeding the poor and making sure they had what they needed to make it through the winter, or working as a team with the rest of the gang on ever more improbable and risky schemes to thwart the Sherriff? What had life been like before all of this, before the days of plots and causes and liberating pompous wealthy travellers of their belongings? They couldn't remember. They'd been living that life for so long that they couldn't remember how _not_ to live it. It was many, many hours into the day when Djaq realized that, as she absently went about the house and the courtyard and the gardens, she was half listening for orders to arm themselves.

It would be harder to readjust to her old life of leisure than it was to learn how to live without it to begin with.

Being here felt lonely without their friends, even though Will was with her. She could tell Will felt the same way, as well. They had lived for so long living in such close quarters with so many other people that living in this great big house in such relative privacy felt almost _unnatural._ They found themselves doing everything—walking, sitting, eating—in close proximity because they simply weren't used to not having people all around them. Bassam's house, her childhood refuge and later her home, was beginning to look and feel unfamiliar and foreign as she wandered aimlessly throughout it.

After she showed him how to get up to the roof of the house, Will took up a position there, leaning over the ledge and looking down on the city around them in awe. Here in the city they were up past the cliffs of the port and the docks and the land was flat, and from that high vantage point on the roof, anybody could look out and see the entire city—the hundreds and hundreds of flat roofs of the houses, the winding alleys and streets, public parks and gardens and baths, the agora where the streets were lined with vendors selling all sorts of wares, and the domed roof and spires of the mosque around which the city was built. And everywhere, there were people, people, _people._ He watched it all with a sort of awed shock. Coming from little Nottingham, he had never seen _so many people_ all living in one place. The village surrounding the castle at Nottingham was the biggest town he'd probably ever seen before, and the bustle of the port city of Acre dwarfed it.

She stayed up there a while with him, pointing out places she remembered and the things she used to do in the city. She stood on the far corner of the roof near the back of the courtyard where they house backed up to one of the wide streets on which there would be markets—this was where, when she was younger, she and her brother and her friend Zahra would arm themselves with soft, wet, and smelly things and drop them on the shoppers below. He'd looked at her, as if trying to imagine it, and laughed.

"I was a horrible child," she admitted.

The mid-afternoon call to prayer startled both of them. It had been such a long time since she'd hard one that she almost forgot what it meant. The chants sounded from the highest towers of the mosque, loud and clear and musical as other calls joined them, echoing all over the city. The movement in the city stopped completely, as everybody stopped and knelt and turned to towards the Holy City to pray. She explained to him what it was, but she didn't do it herself. She probably should have, but over the last years she'd begun to doubt her faith. She hadn't prayed while she was a slave or when she was in England and Allah hadn't reduced her to a smouldering pile of ash yet, so she imagined He wasn't terribly offended by this.

And then she let him be up there on the roof as he quietly tried to absorb this new and completely alien place that would be his home for an indeterminate period of time. She tried to find something to occupy her time as the day dragged on and on. She flitted from the aviary to the library, to the now-empty room that had once been her apothecary lab, and the courtyard and the garden, and back again.

She was _bored,_ she realized sometime in the evening after wandering about in a daze for most of the day. What was there to _do_ now that they didn't have the group and their cause to occupy their days and thoughts and lives?

Supper was unappetizing. She had no appetite, particularly not for the heavily-spiced and high-quality foods that the cooks made; she didn't think she could stomach anything like that after getting used to eating the bare bones meals and 'chicken' that Much fed them. She tore off a piece of bread from the kitchens and picked at it as she made her way back into the aviary.

Will was there, kneeling on the dusty ground and holding a pigeon in his hands and talking softly to it. It was the bird whose mate she had sent back to England with Allan, she realized as she approached him quietly on the soft cloth shoes she wore indoors. She was practically standing right over him before he noticed she was there.

She offered him half of her bread.

"Thanks."

"When did you come in?" She asked.

"Not long ago. I thought it would be too dark to see after sunset, but there are torches _everywhere._ I've never seen so many lights at night before. How do these people know when to sleep?"

Djaq laughed softly.

"They sleep when they were tired. Sometimes there is so much to do in a day that they need a little more time to get things done."

She knelt down next to him. He offered a tiny piece of his bread to the bird, but she turned her head away and refused it.

"I feel sorry for her," he said. "It can't be easy being separated from the one you love."

She said nothing in response to this—it was exactly what she'd thought yesterday when she took the bird's mate away.

He sighed and put the pigeon back into her cage. They sat side-by-side in silence, absorbed in their own thoughts. He looked so sad, she thought. So unsure and so worried. He'd made his decision to stay with her and she knew he didn't regret it and wouldn't go back on it, but the fact remained that he'd chosen to stay in a foreign land where he neither spoke the language nor knew the customs.

"Are you all right?" She asked tentatively.

After a moment's pause, he nodded slowly.

"I just… I don't know. It's a different place and a different world. A whole new life."

She put a hand on his shoulder.

"I don't regret it—I'll _never_ regret it. I _want_ to stay with you," he said quickly. "But…"

"I understand. You do not have to explain."

They watched through the big screened windows of the aviary as the lights in the city slowly went out one by one, as people doused the outside torches and finally ended the day. The night would have been peacefully quiet but for the sounds of nighttime animals, except that the night guards were already on patrol, their boots _clump-clump_-ing on the stone streets and the light from their torches passing by the windows as they walked. They talked amongst themselves, telling rude jokes and bawdy stories that she was grateful that Will couldn't understand.

Soldiers were pigs.

The night cold settled over them. Their thin linen clothing did little to keep them warm and they unconsciously snuggled closer together to ward off the chill. She leaned her head on his shoulder, then turned her head into him and pressed a kiss there.

They didn't bother to go upstairs to their separate rooms and their separate beds. Neither of them could bear the thought of being apart tonight. Instead, they stayed all night curled up together on the dusty floor of the aviary.

Tomorrow their life together, by themselves, in Acre would begin, and there was much to be done.

o…o

0…0…0…0…0

The End. Thanks so much for reading, enjoying, favouring, recommending, and reviewing this story. I've grown pretty attached to this story in the time I've been writing it, so it's a little sad to end it. Le sigh. I hope this explanation of 'Why They Stayed' sheds a little light on the mystery that the end of the series left for us. I think the only reason Will would stay in Acre would be if he could be assured that they would, one day, return to England. If she could have given him an actual time that she'd come back—even if it was ten years—he probably would have gone back to England and waited for her. But she couldn't, so he stayed. That's my interpretation anyway.

Thanks for reading. Feedback of any kind is always, always welcome—but never demanded.


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